“Surely you can’t be serious!

I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.” 

Long before I knew the movie, I knew that moment from the 1980 film Airplane. Airplane was a turning point in the career of fellow Canadian Leslie Nielsen, an established working actor known for playing more serious roles before playing Dr. Rumack in Airplane. 

The concept was simple: take serious actors and have them play their characters completely straight in an absurdist comedic movie. The movie was a hit and from this point on, Nielsen was known for his deadpan comedy and established himself as a comedic legend up until his death in 2010. 

Airplane was a smash hit and led to the short lived TV show Police Squad, which then became a film in 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! The movie spawned two sequels and now in 2025 it’s been remade without Nielsen and with a whole new creative team. 

I absolutely adore Nielsen, Airplane, and the Police Squad/Naked Gun movies and shows, so to say I was skeptical about a Naked Gun reboot would be an understatement. We are in the IP era, where studios are seemingly petrified about taking risks to create the next new thing, and instead look for established names with goodwill from the audience to make their money. 

So, is this reboot criminally unfunny or does The Naked Gun get away with enough laughs to beat the rap?

My Thoughts

First, we need to talk about Liam Neeson, who plays Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Leslie Nielsen’s original Frank Drebin. Overall, I think Neeson is good in the role. Considering he was given a near-impossible task (in my opinion, anyway), good is probably the best I could have hoped for. 

The rest of the cast is also solid, including Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, and CCH Pounder. Although there’s a decently sized supporting cast, it’s really only Neeson, Anderson, and Huston that get much screentime. I would’ve loved to see more Paul Walter Hauser, but he did great in the moments he did have.

Continuing with the positives, the movie is only 85 minutes long, and it’s crammed full of jokes. Even if some don’t land for you, the good news is you’ll be peppered with five more in the next minute, so you won’t even remember that you didn’t laugh at an earlier bit. The movie delivers a steady amount of chuckles and even got a few hearty belly laughs out of me, too. 

Without question, the movie is funny, and I think that most people that go and see this will have a great time with it, but I’m personally a bit more torn on it. 

On the surface, I enjoyed myself and I laughed quite a bit, but when the credits began (which have plenty of jokes in them too and, yes, there is a post-credits scene) I was just thinking about how much I love the originals. If you’ve listened to our podcast at all, you’ll know that we often talk about expectations and what can happen if you bring your own baggage into a movie. 

This is where the downside of the IP era really hits me, because despite my best efforts to leave my expectations at home, I can’t go into a movie called The Naked Gun and not think about Leslie Nielsen, the previous three movies, and the original show. For new audiences and young people that don’t have that attachment, this won’t register at all, and I don’t expect my experience to be what most people experience. For what it’s worth, I had friends with me that have seen and love the originals and had a more enjoyable time than I did. 

In that vein, this movie does mostly carry on the spirit of the Naked Gun, but it also leaves behind some of the charms of the originals, too. I read a few things ahead of the release that noted the filmmakers were trying to bring that “old school” kind of comedy to a new audience, and while I can respect that goal, the moderness of this new reboot was what I disliked the most. 

This manifests most noticeably for me in the visuals and the overall look of the film. It feels too digital, and I was craving more obviously created sets and gags related to that. Even when the classic “noir” jazz music was playing during driving and transition scenes, it just never felt right with the modern look of Los Angeles and because they did nothing creatively to make it feel old school or even funny. Perhaps they thought too much of an “old look” would be a deterrent to modern audiences or something, but when I have such a concrete sense of what a Naked Gun movie should be, if you make one that’s missing some of those same hallmarks, it stands out. 

Now you might be thinking “This guy is making a bit too big of a fuss over an 85-minute studio comedy” and that’s a totally valid criticism, but I don’t think it’s “wrong” to compare the new Naked Gun to its own namesake. If anything, watching this movie made me want to see this creative team do something original and bring that old school comedic thought to a more modern audience in a way that’s more relevant. 

When Police Squad first hit the airwaves in the 80’s, police procedurals were all over the place and incredibly prominent in the culture, and the idea was to parody and spoof them. Rebooting the Naked Gun in 2025 feels a little weird in an era when cop movies are just not really made that often anymore.

Still, when all is said and done, The Naked Gun is better than I expected but not as good as I wanted it to be. 

Verdict

I was incredibly torn on how to rate this movie, but after thinking it through, I feel confident giving it a positive verdict. Even with all the memories and expectations I brought in, I can’t deny it was a fun time at the movies. And in the current dark age of studio comedies, The Naked Gun is an undeniable bright spot.

This isn’t Leslie Nielsen’s Naked Gun, and maybe it never could be, but it’s also not some soulless cash grab. It tries, and often succeeds, at reviving that gag-a-minute spirit for a new generation. If nothing else, I hope it succeeds in that mission and helps usher in a new high point for theatrical comedies.

It may not wear the badge quite like Nielsen did, but it walks the beat well enough to keep the spirit alive.