Stupidity, when executed with complete seriousness, can be genius.
Spoof comedies are supposed to be dead. Buried somewhere in the early 2000s after Epic Movie strangled the genre and audiences stopped laughing at jokes that felt like rejected MADtv sketches.
Yet somehow, in 2025, The Naked Gun is back and starring Liam Neeson, of all people. We’re talking about Mr. “I will find you, and I will kill you,” now slipping on banana peels and getting hit in the face with hotdogs. And, shockingly, it works.
From Police Squad! to popcorn legend
Before Neeson was pratfalling through crime scenes, there was Leslie Nielsen, the godfather of the deadpan.
The whole thing started with Police Squad! in 1982, a TV show so clever it got canceled after six episodes because, as network execs assumed, “People need to actually watch the screen for the jokes.” Critics loved it; viewers didn’t bother.
But in 1988, the concept was reborn as The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, with Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin, a cop so oblivious he could walk through a fireworks factory holding a lit match and still call it “routine procedure.” The movie was a smash. Two sequels followed: The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) and The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). All three became comedy staples, proving that stupidity, when executed with complete seriousness, can be genius.
And then… silence. Spoofs got lazy. By the time Disaster Movie rolled around in 2008, the genre was officially declared extinct.
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Enter Neeson: Dead serious, dead funny
So how do you reboot a spoof in an age of irony, memes, and TikTok edits? You cast Liam Neeson, the least likely comedian alive. In The Naked Gun (2025), he plays Frank Drebin Jr., son of the original detective. The plot involves a stolen artifact, mobsters with accents that sound like improv warm-ups, and a public event destined for disaster. It’s pure scaffolding, just an excuse to stack gags higher than a Jenga tower.
And Neeson? He nails it. Like Nielsen before him, he refuses to wink at the camera. When he accidentally tasers himself, chokes on evidence, or interrogates the wrong suspect entirely, he delivers it all with the same gravitas he brought to Taken. That stone-faced commitment turns the dumbest material into comedy gold.
Gags at 200 MPH
Director Akiva Schaffer (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) understands the assignment: throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. The Naked Gun (2025) doesn’t pause for breath. Visual puns, slapstick, one-liners, exploding condiments—if one joke bombs, three more land before you can groan.
Pamela Anderson turns up as Drebin’s love interest, poking fun at her own pop-culture legacy with surprising sharpness. Paul Walter Hauser, as Drebin’s bumbling partner, proves once again that clumsy physical comedy is his superpower. And the cameos? Imagine celebrities you never expected making fools of themselves on purpose, then double it.
Not every gag works, some fall flatter than roadkill, but spoof has always been about volume. Comedy math says 7 out of 10 jokes landing is a win, and this film fires them like confetti cannons.
Does it live up to Nielsen?
Let’s be clear: nothing will ever match the original trilogy’s lightning-in-a-bottle brilliance. Leslie Nielsen’s Drebin remains the gold standard of deadpan. But Schaffer and Neeson don’t try to outdo the past—they update it.
The new Naked Gun has modern pacing, sharper digs at pop culture, and a willingness to lean into absurdity without apology. It’s reverent but not stale, stupid but not lazy. Think of it less as replacing Nielsen, and more as passing the rubber chicken to a new generation.
Final verdict: Dumb, loud, and exactly what we needed
The Naked Gun (2025) is not refined. It’s not clever in the highbrow sense. It’s not even consistent. But it is hilarious.
By handing the badge to Liam Neeson, the film resurrects a genre everyone assumed was dead and buried. And it reminds us that sometimes the dumbest joke—the pratfall, the pun, the exploding sausage—is exactly the one we need.
An unrepentantly stupid but gloriously funny revival.
Rating: 4/5 stars
