Movie review: 'Naked Gun' lives up to legendary comedy heritage

UPI

2 days ago

1 of 5 | Paul Walter Hauser (L) and Liam Neeson execute a running gag with cups of coffee in "The Naked Gun," in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
July 29 (UPI) -- The Naked Gun, in theaters Friday, joins Cobra Kai, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Top Gun: Maverick as a fulfilling and satisfying legacy sequel. The new film faithfully captures the style of Naked Gun comedy with fresh new jokes for the modern world.
A sequel to and reboot of the film franchise starring the late Leslie Nielsen, The Naked Gun opens with a Dark Knight-style bank robbery, immediately undercut when the loot is blatantly revealed to be the Maguffin that it is. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), the son of Nielsen's Frank Drebin, foils the robbery, but the leader gets away with the item.
Drebin Jr. is also assigned to the automobile death of Simon Davenport, whose sister Beth (Pamela Anderson) suspects foul play. The plot has the complicated machinations of a modern-day action movie, but it is merely there to hang jokes upon, like the original film trilogy.
The original series was created by Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams in their distinct slapstick style, like Airplane! before. 2025 director Akiva Schaffer, of the Lonely Island trio, demonstrates an impeccable understanding of the rhythms and tone without simply aping Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker.
Dialogue comes at a rapid pace with deadpan jokes. Characters take questions literally and answer them as such. Meanwhile, additional jokes play in the background, and even the title screen is a new joke.
Along with wordplay, there is relentless physical comedy. Frank will cause one character to take a pratfall, then deliver another bit of slapstick himself. There is a literal cold case office in Police Squad headquarters that has more to do with temperature than running out of leads.
The new film invents a hilarious running gag where Frank and Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) are handed a fresh coffee cup every time they enter a scene. This leads to additional jokes about where they dispose of the old ones and the empties piling up.
The best part about this running gag is that just when the audience may have forgotten about it, Frank grabs yet another cup of coffee. Schaffer also follows the comedy rule of threes, ensuring that the third instance of a joke is its most ridiculous.
The original films had some topical jokes about then-current political figures and scandals, but they weren't so topical that modern audiences can't still laugh at Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush jokes today.
Likewise, writers Schaffer, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand use these comedy tools to attack modern police issues and the true crime phenomenon. The overwhelming percentage of Black victims of police violence makes the rare White victim a poignant punchline that will unfortunately remain relevant for quite some time.
Villain Richard Cane (Danny Huston) uses the "R-word" as a comment on how offensive that word is now. It's not just that villains use it, but that Cane empowers others to use it.
Neeson is the right kind of modern star to place in this kind of comedy. Nielsen had already done Airplane! before playing Drebin Sr., but what made his deadpan so funny was that he had a body of work as a dramatic actor.
Naked Gun plays off of Neeson's intense action persona, only now his very particular set of skills include absurd fight gags. Trailers show him stabbing bad guys with the end of a lollipop, but the rest of his Naked Gun repertoire makes even less sense.
Neeson also delivers both voiceover and in-scene dialogue with dramatic intensity that makes it take a second to realize he's told a poop joke. That delay makes the poop joke exponentially funnier.
In addition, Schaffer's visual style builds up to jokes. Scenes begin in a close-up that appears to be a normal scene, then cut to a wide shot to reveal the absurdity.
Cinematographer Brandon Trost captures more of an action movie look than the police drama style David Zucker gave the original films. Composer Lorne Balfe gives the musical score the gravitas of his Mission: Impossible music.
This film uses more special effects for jokes than the original films would have. That is Schaffer's generation of comedian applying the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker style to new technology. Each use of effects is silly, and everything else looks better than the girl scout morphing into Neeson shown in the trailers.
Schaffer saves the most direct callbacks to the original Naked Gun for the end credits so the new jokes have a chance to land free of nostalgia. There are cameos throughout the film, and a stuffed beaver is visible but nobody calls it out.
The Naked Gun is easily the funniest movie of the year, but it doesn't even necessitate those qualifiers. It's as funny as the original Naked Gun trilogy, too.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson attend 'Naked Gun' premiere
Cast members Pamela Anderson (L) and Liam Neeson arrive on the red carpet for the premiere of "The Naked Gun" in New York City on July 28, 2025. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo