Written by Sam Clark
Certificate: 15
Running time: 85 minutes
Director: Akiva Shaffer
2025 seems to be the year of nostalgia with various franchises returning to our screens from different time periods of cinematic history. The wait for some has been much longer than others with Happy Gilmore 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer taking us back to the 90's, whereas titles such as The Karate Kid: Legends and Final Destination: Bloodlines took us back to the early 2010's. We seem to be running on a theme here of taking a stroll down memory lane. The only issue is, I find, that some have been brought back just for the sake of it and ruined what came before, and have felt ultimately pointless in what they are doing. The Naked Gun is the latest 80s / 90s franchise to follow this trend, and if that were not enough, we have the sequel to 2003's Freaky Friday coming on the 8th of August - so rest assured to same point will be made yet again.
I am glad to report, however, that The Naked Gun is a pretty rare example of the resurrection of an old film working rather well (or at least as well as it can do, as there are inevitable issues). I must say from the beginning that I did laugh throughout and so did the audience I saw this with. Produced by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane and co-written and directed by Akiva Shaffer, perhaps most well known for being 1/3 of ''The Lonely Island'', a comedy music trio which also features Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone who have featured on SNL. Some may be more familiar with them through their underrated music mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping which was essentially Spinal Tap for a new generation.
Image credit: IMDb / Frank Masi / Paramount Pictures
They take over The Naked Gun reigns from Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrahams who created the 1982 TV show Police Squad, a parody and spoof on cop films. They are also behind what I believe to be the funniest film ever made with Airplane!. Liam Neeson stars as Frank Drebin Jr. (the son of Leslie Nielsen's character from the original films). Drebin is a dedicated but clumsy detective who is working with the new police squad unit which includes the children of the original characters. The film begins with Frank busting a bank robbery which ultimately gets him into trouble with his superior, and the unit is also under threat of closure. He is assigned to investigate the suspicious death of a scientist who was killed in circumstances that lead to a powerful tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Houston).
Cane runs ‘’Edentech’’, a company who build and design electric cars for which caused the scientist's death (not the most subtle reference to certain billionaires in the world currently). Pamela Anderson plays Beth Davenport, a true crime author and the sister of the scientist who Frank teams up with to solve the case - and with who he strikes up a romantic relationship with. Their investigation includes discovering Cane's plans which involve a computer device called the ''Primordial Law Of Toughness'' which the film literally translates as: ''PLOT device'', Ba Dum Tss! This machine causes humans to turn violently against one another, while billionaires like Cane can safely retreat to their bunkers and wait as humanity destroys itself, leaving them to one day emerge to a clean new world rid of everyone.
Image credit: IMDb / Frank Masi / Paramount Pictures
As soon as I saw the ''plot device'' visual gag on screen (which is within the first couple of minutes of the film - if that), not only did I realise that this would maintain the same sense of humour as the best of old spoofs, but that the gags would come thick and fast from the start without a moment to lose - just as they did back in the day. I do miss these types of comedies: Airplane!, Spaceballs (sequel coming soon of course), Austin Powers, films where there is a gag in every frame and in every piece of dialogue. And so, this new version of The Naked Gun does serve as an experiment of whether people still find this type of humour funny or not, and if a new generation will respond well to it. The main thing with The Naked Gun is rather simple, the reason why the originals worked so well and were so funny was that Nielsen was completely oblivious and unaware of all the gags and jokes happening all around him.
Whereas some may see him as this all-time great comic actor because of the films he has been in, that is not necessarily the case. He has said that it has been directors who have made him look stupid and funny, and that all he had to do was go with the flow. Audiences found his confused and bumbling idiocy to be really funny, and they just went with it. People laughed at the really simple things he did, and it just ended up working. Both he and Priscilla Presley also worked brilliantly together on screen. Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson work well here, and their chemistry is thankfully top-notch (according to rumours, they are now a real-life couple and I have to say, it makes sense). Not only do people not usually associate Liam Neeson with comedy, he has proven that he can do it here and in the past. But he doesn't have what Nielsen had; however, we already knew that no one does. As well as this, he does seem game to do quite a lot in this and puts himself out there - dressing up as a school girl in a skirt being the biggest one as we've all seen from the trailer (this is The Naked Gun after all, you either go big or go home). So, it's certainly credit where credit is due.
Image credit: IMDb / Frank Masi / Paramount Pictures
Despite the fact that the gags are as rapid fire and as sharp as is required, there are moments where the humour is unfortunately stretched too far. There is one extended gag about terrestrial TV and box sets that was reduced to tumbleweed in my screening, made worse by the fact that is just kept going despite no laughs - a comedian’s worst nightmare essentially. Calling back to the first films, we also have the obligatory romantic getaway montage between Frank and his lover which does not work here as well as it has done in the past. What I also found surprising is that other jokes seemed to be oddly outdated, and none of them refer to modern technology, AI, social media or anything (yes, there are electric cars but that's it). I'm no expert on what's currently relevant in music, but there's a joke about ‘’The Black Eyes Peas’’ and Fergie which just seemed completely random and not exactly up to the moment. I feel that, given everything that has been going on in the world the past few years, things are there for the film to make fun of or address, but no.
All of that being said, this is the funniest mainstream film I've seen in a couple of years, the last one was 2023's Joy Ride (which I still believe is one of the funniest films ever made) which was truly on another level of raunchiness and misbehaviour, but was also outrageously hilarious (there are things in it which you will never be able to unsee). But to give the benefit of the doubt, that did have an 18 certificate, and it certainly showed, and definitely went for it as much as it possible could. I suppose I came away from The Naked Gun underwhelmed and expecting slightly more, but proved to be more rewarding that a lot of these other ‘90’s re-hashes. But given the fact it remembers how to do that old fashioned sense of humour from those comedies I have mentioned, that is the biggest relief. More of the same please.
In cinemas now
