The Naked Gun (2025) is the kind of spoof that lives or dies on joke density, and on that metric Akiva Schaffer mostly delivers. The film fires off multiple gags a minute, often piling one topper on another until you miss a punchline because you are still laughing at the last. Schaffer has done this before with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and here he teams with writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, with Seth MacFarlane producing. You can feel that lineage in the barrage of cutaway bits and Family Guy style throwaway one liners. In pure joke-per-minute terms, the movie works.
What does not always work is the package those jokes are wrapped in. Modern action polish sits a little stiffly on a franchise that once reveled in visible seams. Much of The Naked Gun is shot like a straight Mission: Impossible installment, which can be a clever contrast in theory, yet the glossy compositions sometimes fight the silliness on screen. The filmmaking is self-serious even when the comedy is not, and the visual tone and comedic sensibility do not always play in harmony.
Liam Neeson takes over as Frank Drebin Jr., and he walks a tricky line. Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin was blissfully oblivious while Nielsen the performer was fully in on the joke. Neeson’s deadpan can be great, but there are stretches where he reads more disengaged than droll. Paul Walter Hauser, as partner Ed Hocken Jr., snaps right into the series’ rhythm and often steals scenes. Pamela Anderson and Danny Huston understand the assignment too, leaning into the heightened reality without winking it to death.
Structurally the movie is episodic, which suits a gag machine. The cold open sets the tone: Drebin Jr. storms a bank heist in an elementary schoolgirl disguise and lays waste to the crooks, a bit that is both ridiculous and a clear statement of comic intent. The film then clicks through mini set pieces and escalating absurdity. Not every bit lands, but the hit rate is high enough that the misses do not linger.
As a legacy sequel, The Naked Gun succeeds at the most important thing. It remembers that the franchise is a delivery system for jokes. It also proves there is still an audience for the classical spoof template, with a worldwide gross reportedly clearing the $100 million mark against a budget in the $40s. I just wish the new movie trusted its goofiness more. The funniest moments feel loose and handmade. The slickest ones feel airless.
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Schaffer, Gregor, and Mand have made a credible update, and fans of Liam Neeson, Paul Walter Hauser, Pamela Anderson, and Danny Huston will find plenty to link to. The Naked Gun does the job, even if it sometimes looks like a different job entirely.
Score: 6/10
The Naked Gun (2025)
- Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu
- Director: Akiva Schaffer
- Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
- Runtime: 85 minutes
- Rated: PG-13
- Release Date: August 1, 2025
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