Police Squad Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. bumbles his way through a murder investigation with far-reaching implications in The Naked Gun, a 2025 reboot of the classic spoof comedy series opening in Prague cinemas from Aug. 14 after debuting stateside earlier this month. Bolstered by a perfectly-cast Liam Neeson—who may now have a third career as unlikely comedy star after unlikely action star—this one is packed with enough genuine laughs to succeed as a feature film comedy in 2025… even if it never really lives up to the original movies.
Coming off Airplane! and Top Secret!, 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (based on a short-lived TV series) and its two sequels were the pinnacle of parody movies that dominated Hollywood comedy for a full two decades from the 1980s through the 1990s. These films—as well as two Hot Shots! films and the underrated Mafia!—were all made in some combination by the ZAZ filmmaking team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker before a slew of Scary Movie sequels (some of which were directed by David Zucker) and unwatchable Jason Friedberg–Aaron Seltzer films like Epic Movie killed off the genre for good in the 2000s.
But now the genre is back with 2025’s The Naked Gun… or is it? The original films were all parodies of hard-boiled 1960s police shows like Dragnet and Peter Gunn, and the stage is set here for, perhaps, a parody of 2000s police dramas like CSI or NCIS. But instead of doing that (which NTSF:SD:SUV already attempted with some success), this movie simply re-creates the previous setting, resulting in an offbeat comedy full of old film noir tropes that neither the filmmakers nor the audience really understand.
In other words, 2025’s The Naked Gun is no longer a direct parody; under director and co-writer Akiva Schaffer (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers) it’s a more general spoof along the lines of an Austin Powers movie (which the film directly lifts at least a couple gags from). Those expecting the laugh-a-minute rides of the earlier films may be disappointed here, but 2025 audiences starved for comedy will be satiated with a genuine laugh every five minutes or so.
Neeson stars as Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the lead character played by Leslie Nielsen in the original Police Squad series and Naked Gun movies, picking up right where his predecessor left off both as a character and actor. Like Nielsen, the Taken star has never been known for comedy; but building on his previous collaboration with producer Seth MacFarlane (A Million Ways to Die in the West), his dedicated deadpan delivery is funny enough in its own right to elevate subpar material.
That’s a good thing, because there’s an abundance of irreverent gags here that either overstay their welcome or never work in the first place. A lengthy montage involving a snowman, an embarrassing witness interrogation, and a bizarre climax featuring an owl are never all that funny, but seeing Neeson approach the material with utter sincerity is entertaining in its own right.
And for fans of the old brand of Airplane! (“don’t call me Shirley”) comedy, there are enough zippy lines peppered throughout to satisfy. These throwaway gags often work far better than the film’s more elaborate comic setups. Upon investigating the initial crime scene, an automobile accident with a single fatality:
Drebin: “No tire skids before the curve. The driver never tried to stop.”
Coroner: “Drunk?”
Drebin: “Just a little. Just to wake me up.”
The plot of these movies never matter—even fans of the original films would struggle to recall story details as opposed to gags—but 2025’s The Naked Gun dedicates more time to its convoluted narrative than usual. It involves Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), the sister of the dead man, and his former employer, a billionaire tech mogul Richard Cane (Danny Huston). Cane has stolen a P.L.O.T. device that will drive people crazy and reduce the world’s population size while the rich and powerful will wait out the apocalypse in an underground bunker watching “Weird Al” Yankovic videos.
Like Neeson, Anderson (in the midst of the career resurgence) and Huston nail that deadpan delivery that sells the film’s weaker gags; so do Paul Walter Hauser as Drebin’s sidekick, Kevin Durand as Cane’s muscle, and—best of all—CCH Pounder as Drebin’s superior, who only has a few short scenes but gets some of the film’s biggest laughs. One only wishes that director Schaffer approached the material with the same unflinching seriousness as his stars; instead, he too often reminds us that he’s in on the joke.
This new Naked Gun is like a good joke that has been retold over the years, and lost some context and relevance along the way: it’s still funny, even if we don’t always remember why we’re laughing. But in an era where even mainstream comedy like You’re Cordially Invited goes straight to streaming, The Naked Gun proves that there’s still life in the genre. It’s fun to laugh, and especially with a crowd; while not all the jokes here work, enough do to leave us looking forward to a rewatch—or even a sequel.
