‘The Naked Gun’ review: Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson headline pleasingly reverential comedy sequel

Dir: Akiva Schaffer. US. 2025. 85mins.

The Naked Gun is pleasingly reverential to its source material, which is another way of saying it is as wonderfully stupid as its predecessors. Thirty-seven years after the original Naked Gun – the hit cop-comedy starring Leslie Nielsen that spawned two sequels – this new film does not have Nielsen or the original trilogy’s creative brain trust. But director Akiva Schaffer and actor Liam Neeson pull off a consistently amusing facsimile, complete with the same kinds of dopey gags, groanworthy one-liners and ridiculous pop-culture referencing that made the 1988 film so beloved.

It takes real smarts to keep the crowdpleasing silliness zipping along

Paramount Pictures unveils The Naked Gun in the UK and US on August 1, some 31 years after the final Nielsen instalment, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. At a time when studio comedies have become practically an endangered species on the big screen, The Naked Gun’s theatrical performance will be worth monitoring and good buzz should help bolster box office. Producer Seth MacFarlane, best known for the long-running animated sitcom Family Guy and his smash film Ted, could also raise the picture’s profile among its target demographic.

Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr, the son of Nielsen’s clueless (and now deceased) LAPD detective, who, like his father before him, works for Police Squad. While investigating the suicide of a tech company employee, Frank Jr meets the man’s sister, a true-crime novelist named Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), who insists her brother was murdered. Frank Jr’s pursuit of the truth leads him to Richard Cane (Danny Huston), the wealthy, unscrupulous tech company head, who is secretly planning to eradicate most of humanity so that only the elite survive.

Based on their short-lived ABC sitcom Police Squad!, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker’s Naked Gun (1988) followed the same surefire comedic formula as their 1980 parody masterpiece Airplane!. With Nielsen (who died in 2010) reprising his TV role as Frank Drebin, Naked Gun consisted of nonstop visual and verbal jokes, often sending up cop-show clichés while offering oodles of slapstick, scatalogical humour and the occasional risque sexual innuendo. This new outing honours that proudly sophomoric tradition by piling on the punchlines and sight gags, barely waiting for the audience to recover from one gag before introducing the next.

Veteran tough-guy action star Neeson has previously flashed a self-mocking sense of humour in MacFarlane’s A Million Ways To Die In The West and the Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant series Life’s Too Short, Like Neilsen before him, he plays his Naked Gun character with deadpan sincerity, no matter how foolish Frank Jr comes across. Neeson cannot quite recapture Nielsen’s playful, loose-limbed absurdity, but his growly delivery of the character’s inane dialogue generates plenty of laughs. Frank Jr is as obtuse yet unerringly confident as his old man, which leads to myriad moments when he says or does the wrong thing, only slowly realising his mistake after everyone around him.

Neeson shows delightful chemistry with Anderson, who has fun with her underdeveloped role as the love interest. After earning kudos for her compelling dramatic turn in The Last Showgirl, Anderson brings the right amount of winking femme-fatale energy to The Naked Gun. Frank Jr and Beth’s budding attraction provides one of the film’s finest sequences: a knowingly cheesy romantic montage that suddenly goes in an unexpected and hilarious direction.

Fans of the original trilogy will recognise fairly subtle callbacks, but Schaffer (who is one-third of the comedic collective Lonely Island, and previously directed Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers and co-directed Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) pays potent tribute to those films by confidently channelling their irreverent spirit. Working with cinematographer Brandon Trost, Schaffer ensures the background frequently contains a goofy throwaway joke, while composer Lorne Balfe slyly recalls the sleek scores from numerous action thrillers, all in the name of emphasising the tomfoolery on screen.

But Schaffer’s formal strategy never gets in the way of the relentless stream of jokes, which target everything from annoying ads in YouTube videos to the illogical elements of Mission: Impossible. The Naked Gun is as unabashedly juvenile as its predecessors, but the humour’s good-natured cheerfulness keeps it from feeling cruel or crass. Which is not to say Schaffer and his writers stay away from more pointed jokes at the expense of OJ Simpson, Bill Cosby and endemic police brutality. This film may seem stupid, but it takes real smarts — and a lot of joy — to keep the crowdpleasing silliness zipping along.