THE NAKED GUN: Not Bad For a Sequel Nobody Asked For

THE NAKED GUN (Blu-ray)

2025 / 85 min

Paramount

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Bulldozer😽

For a belated sequel that nobody was asking for, The Naked Gun ain’t bad at all.

The original Naked Gun, based on an even-funnier, short-lived TV series, Police Squad!, is an all-time classic that (along with Airplane!) firmly established Leslie Nielsen as the king of movie parodies. Along with rapid-fire dialogue & visual gags courtesy of the legendary ZAZ team, a big reason for its success was the casting of actors not typically associated with comedy, who played the material straight.

The idea of another film without the original cast and writers seems unthinkable, especially in an era when parody films are about as fresh as curdled milk. However, director Akiva Schaffer is no stranger to the genre, and while filling Nielsen’s shoes is arguably a fool’s errand, The Naked Gun similarly benefits from a cast mostly known for serious roles, starting at the top with Liam Neeson.

Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Nielsen’s character and also a member of LA’s Police Squad. Since even movies like this need a perfunctory plot, Drebin is investigating the death of software designer Simon Davenport. Initially deemed a suicide, Simon’s sister, Beth (Pamela Anderson), insists he was murdered. It turns out that Richard Cane (Danny Huston), the head of the tech company Simon worked for, has nefarious plans for the software.

A reminder to always use your turn signal.

But that’s neither here nor there. Like all the rest of the franchise (with plots we barely recall), the story is a clothesline on which to hang a plethora of gags, both visual and dialogue-driven. With perhaps a bigger emphasis on slapstick than previous films, not everything works, but a surprising amount of it does. For every joke that falls flat, a couple are genuinely funny, if not laugh-out-loud hilarious. Quite a bit of this is largely due to Neeson, whose performance never reeks of look-at-me-being-funny. 

Did the world need another Naked Gun movie? Of course not, but the fact that it’s actually pretty good is one of this year’s more pleasant surprises. While never getting the mileage from its gags that Nielsen and the ZAZ team did with the original, this one often captures the spirit of that film, at least enough to justify its existence. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - A Legacy of Laughter features interviews with the cast and crew; Son of a (Naked) Gun features actor Liam Neeson; The Funny Femme Fatale features actor Pamela Anderson; The Really Unusual Suspects features other members of the cast; Dropping the Balls focuses on the making of the finale.

OUTTAKES

DELETED/EXTENDED/ALTERNATE SCENES - There are a bunch of ‘em.

FAUX COMMERCIALS - Full versions of a couple of fake commercials that appear in the film.