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The Naked Gun… the reboot/continuation that looked like a monumental disaster from the moment I saw the initial teaser.
Is it as bad as it appeared? Yes.
Like with the teaser, I only laughed once in the entire film, and it was from the OJ Simpson joke that appeared in there, and was somewhat truncated for the main trailer, so it doesn’t really work.
What also doesn’t work is the remainder of the 85 long minutes for which you’ll be sat down.
Firstly, there are no traditional opening gag credits with the police siren. Given how Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker were against a fourth film from being made, back in 2009, perhaps they put their foot down over this? I know they had nothing to do with this latest installment.
Meanwhile, Every joke is obvious and signposted well in advance. This film really is only for complete simpletons who’ve never seen another film in their life before, and thus are not aware what comedy is.
Some examples… so feel free to skip this section if you’re still planning to waste your time, when there are far better films out there, on the big screen:
- The Police Squad sign is back-to-front in their HQ, so from inside the office, ‘Police’ reads in reverse, while ‘Squad’ is shown legibly.
- Liam Neeson (he ain’t Frank!) goes to investigate evidence in an upside-down car, donning a rubber glove AFTER putting his coffee cup onto the vehicle, then uses his other hand to pull out the evidence, anyway.
- Cold Cases are stuck in a freezer…
- As the baddie, Danny Huston (The Crow 2024) – as Elon Musk-style billionaire Richard Cane – creates a Primordial Law Of Toughness device, aka P.L.O.T. Device. Oh, and bear in mind how since I saw Abigail, if ever anyone was best-placed to play a Musk-like character, it would be Kevin Durand. Here, he is added to the payroll, but is mostly sidelined as Cane’s underling, Sig Gustafson.
Oh, and Huston’s face scar changes sides, from time to time.
- Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl) is still hot at 58, but when she goes to speak to Liam in his office, early on, he offers her to sit down with, “Take a chair“. She replies, “No thanks, I have enough chairs at home“, but at the end of the scene, she takes it, anyway.
- Plus, there’s a coffee joke that’s so overdone, since wherever Liam and Paul go, they’re handed coffee, even though they already have one, often causing them to ditch it and just use the new one.
- Probably worst of all, though, and there’s a single joke about Liam eating, causing him to rush to the toilet, which goes on for at least five minutes, with the same joke over and over.
I understand that the reason Leslie Nielsen worked so well for comedy in Airplane! and for Police Squad (less so for Naked Gun 1 and 3, for me, although I did enjoy the second one, first time round), is because he played them straight, as if delivering a drama role, allowing everything and everyone else to explode around him.
In 2025, Liam Neeson knows exactly the kind of film he’s making, and every single scene really shows just how little he wants to be there.
A few other asides, Liam’s “That was awesome” is applied to a later scene, and not one involving ripping a man’s arm off, and battering him with it.
The joke about Liam lending Pam his TiVo, telling her NOT to plug it into the internet… only to find she’s done just that, so his old episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer are now expired. Hmm…. I remember using TiVo in the early 2000s, but the HD version of the system is only available through Virgin Media, since it was originally partnered with Sky TV, and they basically stiffed the brand over launching their Sky+ box.
As for expired shows, that’s something that would’ve worked 20-odd years ago, but now, you can just download anything from the internet, very quickly. Still, I’m sure they’re all on some streaming service or another. I remember how BBC2 used to butcher them when they showed them at 6pm on a Friday.
Oh, and then there’s some latecomers, who were allowed into this film with less than an hour to go, when a brand new screening was just 20 minutes away!
I saw The Naked Gun last night, with an 8.20pm start time, with the film actually starting at 8.40pm. I was sat at the back of the front section of seating in Trafford Centre’s screen 15, a section that hardly anyone goes in, since all the chatterboxes and wankers usually go to the back section… Usually.
Come 9pm, and for what feels like long after the film has started, this couple come in and sit down right in front of me, in a quietish screen. Oh, joy.
By 9.55pm, the credits start, and like a lot of people, they get up to leave. They’ve been sat there for less than an hour, yet there was another screening for 9.20pm, so given how short this film is (85 minutes from end to end), why didn’t staff just send them to that screening? Or did this pair choose to miss a chunk of it voluntarily?
Either way, they were laughing a lot, and even sporadically applauding at times. Hope they got value for their 55 minutes…
Personally, I didn’t find it anywhere near as funny as the paid critics did…
Then again, with a budget of $42m, and by today, a weekend worldwide take of $28.3m, it looks like it’s going to be a box office bomb! Ooh, that’s given me a good laugh!
NOTE: There’s also a mid- AND post-credits scene, as described in the video below.
The Naked Gun is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 85 minutes
Release date: August 1st 2025
Studio: 2.39:1
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 0.5/10
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Producers: Erica Huggins, Seth MacFarlane
Music: Lorne Balfe
Screenplay: Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, Akiva Schaffer
Music: Lorne Balfe
Cast:
Frank Drebin Jr: Liam Neeson
Beth Davenport: Pamela Anderson
Ed Hocken Jr: Paul Walter Hauser
Richard Cane: Danny Huston
Chief Davis: CCH Pounder
Sig Gustafson: Kevin Durand
Detective Barnes: Liza Koshy
Detective Park: Eddie Yu
Detective Taylor: Michael Beasley
Not Nordberg Jr: Moses Jones
Police Squad Technician: Chase Steven Anderson
Bank Robber: Busta Rhymes
Himself: ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic
Himself: Dave Bautista
Jane Spencer: Priscilla Presley
Little Girl: Sailor Luna Bunch
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.