My quick rating – 7.1/10. Oh, the return of Police Squad. I grew up on the original series and the trilogy that followed—each one a goldmine of slapstick brilliance, visual gags, and enough puns to choke a thesaurus. So when The Naked Gun was announced, I braced myself for disaster. After all, comedy reboots usually land with the same grace as a drunk giraffe on roller skates. But shockingly, this one actually… works. Not perfectly, but hilariously enough to earn a solid score in my opinion.
The setup is as gloriously dumb as you’d hope: a mysterious P.L.O.T. device (yes, that’s literally what it’s called) threatens to plunge the world into a Purge-style meltdown. Only one man can stop it—Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., played by none other than Liam Neeson. Yes, that Liam Neeson, the man who once threatened kidnappers over the phone and now finds himself slipping on banana peels while delivering deadpan one-liners. Somehow, it clicks.
Enter Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), Drebin’s love interest, because what’s a Naked Gun film without a damsel who’s both glamorous and stuck in increasingly ridiculous situations? Their romance gets the full goofy montage treatment, complete with slow-motion running, awkward stares, and at least one gag involving infrared googles that had me spitting popcorn.
The humor? Non-stop. This thing doesn’t just throw jokes at the wall—it coats the wall in superglue and launches a comedy cannon at it. Verbal puns, visual gags, and background jokes you’ll miss if you blink. It’s the kind of clever stupidity that made the Zucker/Abrahams era so good. There are callbacks, sure, but the film resists turning into a 90-minute “Remember this?” fest. Instead, it nails the tone of the originals while carving out its own space in the comedy reboot landscape.
Casting is a pleasant surprise. Paul Walter Hauser steals scenes with perfect delivery, and Pamela Anderson proves she’s got sharper comic timing than she usually gets credit for. But the real MVP is Neeson. Much like Leslie Nielsen before him, Neeson comes from a dramatic/action background, and that’s exactly what makes him funny here. Watching him scowl his way through ridiculous situations sells every joke. It’s like Taken, but instead of his daughter, his dignity is the one constantly being kidnapped.
Is it flawless? Not quite. The Zucker/Abrahams classics (Airplane!, Top Secret!, the original Naked Gun trilogy) are still the gold standard, and this reboot doesn’t quite touch that same level of perfection. But in an era where spoof comedies are nearly extinct, this feels like a resurrection. Slick production, clever writing, and a commitment to being unapologetically stupid—it’s the kind of comedy Hollywood desperately needs right now.
So yeah, The Naked Gun isn’t just a nostalgia trip. It’s proof that stupid can still be funny, and that sometimes the best way to save the world is with a pratfall and a pun.
Still working on proper buttons for you all, Plex and JustWatch are also options.
