The Naked Gun (2025): A Hilarious Legacy Sequel Done Right
- George Burkert
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
The Naked Gun is the legacy sequel to The Naked Gun movies that starred Leslie Nielsen. This time, The Naked Gun stars Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. Directed by Akiva Schaffer, The Naked Gun focuses on Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr, the son of former Detective Frank Drebin, and how he tries to figure out how a bank heist and the death of a software engineer are connected, as well as falling for the engineer's sister, Beth Davenport, who writes crime novels. Dreblin also needs to control his actions, as they could lead to the Police Squad shutting down. The movie also stars Danny Huston, CCH Pounder, and Paul Walter Hauser. It's been over thirty years since Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, the last Naked Gun movie, came out. Spoof comedies have been struggling for years, trying too hard and lacking what spoof comedies like the original Naked Gun movies and other spoof comedies, such as Airplane! from 1980, had that made them classics. This is also the first Naked Gun movie without Leslie Nielsen.
The Naked Gun is easily one of the funniest movies of not just this year, but in many years. This is a movie that has so many different ways to make the audience laugh and deserves to be seen in theaters. Even when the movie has the same joke, they still change it up. For example, a recurring joke is that the cops always drink coffee and randomly get a new cup right away. They find ways to change it up and make sure the joke never gets old. The movie has an amazing combination of action and humor that is entertaining. Even the credits have jokes that are funny. The runtime of an hour and twenty-five minutes is perfect and right around the same runtime as the first Naked Gun movie.
The humor is driven by Liam Neeson and how hilarious he is, even when his character Drebin is not trying to be funny and looks as serious as he can, despite something goofy happening. The opening sequence, which has been shown in the trailers, so it's not a spoiler, starts with Drebin getting into a bank while it's being robbed, disguised as a schoolgirl, followed by Neeson taking down these robbers, still dressed as a schoolgirl, acting all serious. At times it looks like a fusion of the action from the Taken movies and humor of the original Naked Gun movies. At the same time, he does funny things by accident and is not aware of what is happening. Audiences are used to seeing Neeson in serious roles, but here he is perfect as the son of Frank Drebin. Neeson isn't trying to replicate Leslie Nielson's style, and both have their uniqueness in comedic timing and how they pull it off. Neeson also shows he can still pull off intense action sequences. Its style is similar to that of the spoof comedies of the 1980s and early 1990s, with a nice blend of modern-day humor.
The rest of the cast is hilarious as well. Pamela Anderson as Beth, Drebin's love interest, works well in wanting revenge against the people behind her brother's death in a hilarious way, and has great chemistry with Neeson. Danny Huston plays the main antagonist, Richard Cane, who has a reputation for playing intense characters. Cane wants to turn people into barbarians when the ball drops on New Year's Eve, so society tears itself apart while he and his rich buddies hide out in a bunker, waiting it out to start a new world order. Huston pulls off a dangerous yet hilarious villain with insane motivations.
Overall, The Naked Gun is a hilarious legacy sequel that lives up to The Naked Gun name. Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson are funny and have insanely good chemistry. The movie is a blend of action from Taken and spoof comedies from the 1980s. For the most part, audiences won't need to see the other three Naked Gun movies from the late 1980s and early 1990s before going into it, although I recommend you check them out as well. I hope this starts a new Naked Gun trilogy and we see more of Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson together in these movies. My final grade for The Naked Gun is an A. If you are a fan of the original Naked Gun movies and want to see a funny comedy after being disappointed in spoof comedies that have come out in the last twenty years or so, give The Naked Gun a shot.
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