The Naked Gun (2025) Review
Liam Neeson is back in another action film this time it’s an action comedy or more like an action spoof comedy, The Naked Gun. I was able to see the film last night with my dad…who had quite the review for the film (I’ll share that later). What did I think about the film? Did I laugh? Let’s talk about it!
NOTE: Before I go into the review, I feel it’s important to say that I haven’t seen any of the previous Naked Gun films. I intended to watch them before this film but never got around to doing so. That’s my perspective going into the film, not having any nostalgia for the franchise.
The Good
For me, I thought The Naked Gun was an enjoyable and funny film. As somebody who has no emotional investment into this franchise. Some people have been praising this film as the best comedy of the decade and it debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a 98%, I wouldn’t go that far. But for what the movie is and what it’s trying to be, it’s entertaining and enjoyable. It felt refreshing both as a movie but also as a comedy. This is of course a legacy sequel/reboot of The Naked Gun, maybe the most famous spoof comedy film franchise of all time. Spoof movies were huge back in the ‘80s with Airplane, Spaceballs, and of course The Naked Gun and we haven’t gotten a lot of spoof movies over the few decades. We know that Spaceballs II is coming out, I wouldn’t be surprised if a reboot of Airplane gets announced soon. Spoof comedy feels fresh in the year 2025 because we don’t get a lot of them. The humor and the way it’s presented is so unique to this sub-genre that if these jokes were in any other comedy they wouldn’t work. I’m optimistic about Spaceballs II and maybe this will start a resurgence in spoof comedies and have more great comedies coming out.
Of course you have to talk about the humor and from beginning to end this film had me laughing out loud. Several other people in my theater were enjoying themselves. The rate per minute of jokes in this film is very high. There’s a joke every 10-15 seconds, whether that’s a line delivery, a sight gag, or something funny that’s happening that keeps you entertained. The film starts off with the bank heist that’s prominently shown in the trailers and that’s a funny bit. But all throughout the film there’s these funny little bits that put a smile on your face and make you laugh out loud. I’d imagine if you’re able to see this film with a packed theater it’ll play very well because it’s a film that’s built around the communal movie theater experience. If you don’t know the creative team behind it, Seth MacFarlane is one of the producers on the film. This was his creative brainchild where he helped hire the director and Liam Neeson. It has that flavor about it so if you like MacFarlane’s humor for Family Guy and Ted then I think you’ll have a blast with this film. Beyond that, the director directed Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers from a few years back. It was a really surprising comedy that was surprisingly witty and a solid film. This is another solid film from here, his beginnings was on SNL. When you put all together you get a group of people that are all very funny and they created a funny movie.
From there, you have a really fun cast here with fun actors that are willing to be over the top. This film wouldn’t work if the cast wasn’t having fun and clearly they were. In the lead is Liam Neeson who just does a fantastic job. What works so well about him in the lead is that he’s saying all of this funny and over the top stuff but he plays it straight with this dead pan sense of humor. In interviews, he talked about how he was directed to pretend it was a drama. When you know that going into the film it changes your perspective on it and I think that’s what works so well about the comedy is that Neeson isn’t being over the top he’s being straight and serious about it. Since I’m on the younger side, I didn’t grow up with Pamela Anderson as a star and she plays really well off of Neeson. The two of them have nice chemistry with each other and for what the movie needs from them, they’re able to pull it off well. They aren’t going to be remembered as one of cinema’s best couples or anything like that. You also have Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, and Kevin Durand in here as side characters and once again having a lot of fun in these roles. All of them get their moment to have a great joke or gag that puts a smile on your face. There’s also some fun cameos in here that are once again fun, they put a smile on your face and have a joke to deliver and then they leave.
Finally, I just appreciate that the film knows exactly what it is. It knows what the audience wants in terms of types of jokes and what ridiculous scenarios we want Liam Neeson or the rest of the cast to do. This movie is coming out a week after Happy Gilmore 2 that I didn’t work at as a comedy at all. I think that the problem with that film is it tried to be subversive and do shocking things while not understanding that it's a comedy sequel to an Adam Sandler classic. This film knows that it’s a spoof comedy and is leaning into that, it’s not reinventing the genre or anything like that. Plus, it’s just nice that the film is 85 minutes long so it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
The Bad
The first thing I wanted to mention here isn’t a big problem but it was a bit disappointing leaving the theater. Part of my excitement for Liam Neeson doing a spoof comedy on the action thriller genre is you can have fun with Neeson’s later career of being almost 100% action thrillers. Since Taken came out in 2008 he’s been doing non-stop action thrillers. The film doesn’t really comment on that. Maybe it does but I just missed it due to how many jokes are being thrown at the screen. I just wish that they made a Taken reference or had fun with all of Neeson’s action thrillers. I don’t wanna give too much away but there’s a running gag throughout the film involving a phone and everytime it is making the joke I thought the punchline was going to be him giving the Taken monologue or a comedic version of that and it never did. Once again, this isn’t a big issue with the film but it was a missed opportunity in my mind.
Another issue here isn’t specific to this film but when you’re doing a movie like this that’s throwing a million jokes at the screen there’s jokes that don’t always land. To be clear, I had a lot of fun with the film and I laughed out multiple times. But there were a few bits here and that I would’ve done differently or weren’t as funny as other jokes in the film. Once again, it’s not a big issue because 90% of the film did make me laugh but there were a few jokes that lasted a few minutes that I wasn’t crazy about.
Final Thoughts: Overall, The Naked Gun was a fun and entertaining film. I was laughing from beginning to end and it’s impressive with the rapid rate per second that jokes are dropping. This isn’t one of my favorite films of the year, I don’t think it’s fantastic but at the end of the day I thought it was funny and I got what I wanted. This is a comedy and the inherent nature of comedy is it’s purely subjective. Different people find different things funny. I went to see the film with my dad last night, this is what he said on Twitter after we saw it. “The Naked Gun was hilarious(ly) awful. It’s like they hated the audience and wanted us to purposefully make a bad movie to punish us.” My dad clearly didn’t like the film but I enjoyed it.
The Score: 8.3/10 (B)
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