Within the past few years, true-blue comedies have begun to decline as a distinct breed in our theatrical ecosystem. Most of them have either become straight-to-streaming fodder to be watched in the background and forgotten forever, or films that aren’t comedies, like most of the MCU, fill the void with comedy as a subgenre. There have been exceptions to this trend, like 2023’s No Hard Feelings or 2025’s One of Them Days, but true comedies have been few and far between. 

In these dark times for the genre, 2025’s The Naked Gun comes at a moment when we all need it. The film plays as a loose legacy sequel to the original Leslie Nielsen classic while providing more than a fair share of its unique charm and laugh-out-loud moments. It’s a true-blue joke every second comedy with a unique lineup of gags and two committed performances from Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. The Naked Gun is 85 minutes of nonstop laughter. It’s never felt so good to laugh.

The plot of The Naked Gun, as expected, is silly, involving Richard Cane (Danny Huston) getting help from Sig Gustafson (Kevin Durand) to steal something known as the P.L.O.T. Device (yes, really), which can manually pit every human on Earth against one another in sheer anger. 

Only one man has the skills to uncover the lies and deception to save the world: Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson). With the help of partner Captain Ed (Paul Walter Hauser) and assistance from bombshell Beth Davenport (Anderson), Police Squad will have to work harder than ever to win the day.

Although our lead goes by the same name and there is a fair share of nods towards the 1988 classic, Neeson’s Naked Gun in no way falls into the trappings that have killed other legacy sequels. The film even takes meta jabs at the fact that it is a legacy sequel, Hollywood’s new favorite subgenre. In one of the film’s first gags, Neeson says verbatim that he wants to be like his dad but also have his own original lean so as not to be a carbon copy. The Naked Gun manages to find that sweet spot that other legacy films struggle to locate.

Whether it’s through slapstick, elongated bits, background gags, meta jabs, clever film visual and verbal references, or, of course, innuendos, The Naked Gun is a non-stop joke machine till the end. There’s rarely a moment when a quip doesn’t fly by you at lightning speed, and it’s the best feeling in the world. Even on the rare occasion where one joke hits less than another, there’ll be another right around the corner that’s an absolute knockout.

Matters are helped even more when you have a great cast surrounding such sharply written wittiness, and renowned comedy director Akiva Schaffer gets the best out of his actors. I love how much the film plays with Neeson’s action star persona. He plays deadpan jokes well when needed, but he’s also able to channel a vaguely similar level of charm to Nielsen’s Drebin due to a similar-sounding vocal cadence. 

Neeson’s chemistry with Anderson throughout the film is electric. They’re able to play into the absurd nature of everything so well due to a clear understanding of the type of energy needed to deliver these jokes. They fit together in spades. 

It’s easy to say that we rarely, if ever, get films like The Naked Gun anymore, but the reality is, it’s true. The Naked Gun not only brings back the delightful era of spoof films such as Airplane (1980) and Schaffer’s own Pop Star: Never Stop Popping (2016), but it also brings a delightfully goofy and self-aware energy that couldn’t be more welcome. With laughs that will leave you in stitches and a more than dedicated cast, The Naked Gun is an absolute triumph of a comedy. If there’s any sort of justice in the world, we’ll see many more like it for years to come. 

Review Courtesy of Joshua Mbonu

Feature Image Credit Paramount Pictures via The Wrap