The Naked Gun is open now. And if you're planning to hit the theater this weekend, don't do that. They're made of concrete and you're probably going to hurt your hand. Hello everybody. I'm Dan Merl here with my review of The Naked Gun, which is a quasi reboot of the classic comedy film series that began in 1988, starring, of course, Leslie Nielsen as Police Squad Lieutenant Frank Drebin. That film series was itself a movie adaptation of the short-lived 1982 series Police Squad, which lasted just six episodes.
So, what we have here is a legacy sequel reboot of a TV show's spin-off. The Naked Gun is directed by the Lonely Islands' Aka Schaffer, with a script from Schaffer, Dan Greger, and Doug Mand. The same trio teamed up for the Disney Plus original movie Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers a few years ago, which I think was criminally underseen in a movie that I enjoyed quite a bit.
Added to the comedy mix is Seth McFarland, who produced the movie and I'm sure also had a lot of creative input. Liam Niss takes over the lead role from the similarly named Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin Jr., who's trying very hard to match his father's legendary incompetence as a police officer. While investigating a murder, Drebin finds himself tangled up in a complicated scheme that doesn't really matter because the plot in these movies is just a framework to hang as many jokes as possible onto.
Pamela Anderson co-stars as Beth Davenport, Frank's love interest, who teams up with him to avenge a loved one. Paul Walter Hower plays Frank's partner, Ed, the son of George Kennedy's character from the original films. and Danny Houston gets to ham it up as Richard Kaine, a tech billionaire who I'm sure wasn't inspired in any way by Elon Musk.
The important thing to remember about comedy is that it is one of the most subjective genres. You either laugh or you don't. But here are some of the things that make me laugh. First of all, I love the movies that were made by the team of Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker. And those movies include the original Naked Gun films, the Airplane movies, the Hot Shots movies, and Top Secret. They are all very much on my comedy frequency, and I think that they're some of the greatest movie comedies of all time. I also love absurd humor. I love stupid jokes, the dumber the better, actually, which you probably know if you've watched this channel for a while.
I love Deadpan Comedy. And I love the Lonely Island, which is the trio that Aka Schaffer is part of, along with Andy Samberg and Yorma Takone. They got their start at Channel 101 in Los Angeles, which I was also a part of for many years. And I think that Pop Star, Never Stop, Never Stopping, is one of the comedies made recently that's come closest to achieving the same level of dumb, absurd comedy that we saw with movies like Airplane and the original Naked Gun.
In short, this movie is on paper tailor made to make me laugh. But that's the danger with remaking something like The Naked Gun. There are fewer disappointments more bitter than a movie fan going to see a comedy that you're really excited for that just doesn't work. Luckily, 2025's The Naked Gun does work. I think it works really well. It embraces what makes these kinds of movies work, which is to pack every minute of the movie with as many jokes as possible, every kind of joke. And the only rule really seems to be that there is no joke too stupid to be included. And there are some stupid stupid jokes in this movie. I loved almost every one of them and I think that I laughed more during The Naked Gun than just about any other movie that I've seen in theaters in a very long time.
The last Naked Gun film, The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, opened in the US on March 18, 1994. Three days later, Schindler's List won big at the Oscars with Liam Niss competing for best actor, which he lost to Tom Hanks. If I were to go back in time and tell everybody at that ceremony that 31 years later Liam Niss would be starring as Frank Drebin in a Naked Gun movie, I probably would have been thrown into an insane asylum. That guy is going to take over for Leslie Nielsen. Yes. And he'll also be an action star, I'd say, as they put the straight jacket on. But as anyone who's seen Life's Too Short knows, Liam Niss has a real gift for comedy. It's not quite as effortless as Leslie Nielsen made it look, but only about 10 other people in movie history have made comedy look as effortless as Leslie Nielsen.
Nissan is great at using his gruff, tough guy persona to deliver truly some of the most ridiculous lines imaginable. The only way that this movie works is for it to be played completely straight, and Nissan is great at doing that. Equally as great and what may surprise many people is Pamela Anderson who's able to match Nissan in the same way that Priscilla Presley perfectly complemented Leslie Nielsen in the original movie. Again, in 1994, if I told you that Pam Anderson from Baywatch would be headlining a major studio comedy and crushing it right after she was nominated by the Screen Actors Guild for one of the most acclaimed dramatic performances of the year, you'd have laughed in my face.
Well, it turns out the joke's on you, imaginary person from the past, because Pamela Anderson is at the beginning of what looks like an amazing second act in her career. And quite honestly, I'm here for it. I also love Danny Houston as the movie's villain who gets plenty of jokes of his own and is often the straight man for Liam Niss's ridiculousness. Paul Walter Hower gets some chances to shine, as does CCH Pounder as Drebin's frustrated chief at Police Squad. But the real unnamed co-star of any movie like this is the jokes themselves. And The Naked Gun has some great ones.
Background gags, sound effects, word play, stupid dialogue, random diversions, puns, pop culture references, visual gags. They're all thrown in and packed as densely as possible into this movie's tight 85-minute runtime, which I think is a perfect length for a comedy like this. Just like the original Naked Gun films, there are jokes right up until the last credit rolls, and you'll definitely want to stick around in the theater through the end credits. Just FYI, parody or spoof film making has gotten a really bad rap in the last several years, and it's mainly because most of the parody and spoof films that have been made have been abjectly terrible. The makers of the epic movie/disaster movie type films should be arrested for crimes against comedy.
When you're throwing out this many jokes, your hit-to-miss ratio has to be pretty good or else you're dead in the water. And that's why those other movies were so terrible. It's because they had a terrible hit-to-miss ratio. I'd say The Naked Gun has about an 80% hit rate, maybe higher. And when you're throwing out as many jokes as they do, that means that I was laughing a lot in a pretty empty theater on a Thursday night, as movies often are in my town, which is impressive because I think the hardest laugh for a comedian to get is the laugh of a person in an empty room or a sparsely populated room.
I think that I may actually go back to the theater this weekend to see the movie again with a more packed crowd just to laugh along with them because it's such a great communal experience. I will also be curious to see what the reception is for this movie across different generations. Millennials like me were raised on these kinds of comedies, but it seems like the golden rule with a lot of the younger generation, your Z's and alphas, is to not be cringe. Well, this movie was made to be cringed at. It wants your cringe. It needs your cringe. It is asking for your ridicule. If your reaction to an obscenely dumb joke, the kind that I often open these reviews with, is to say, "What even was that?" The answer is stupid. It's stupid. You should embrace that cringe because it's such a good time.
I was very skeptical when I heard that there was going to be a remake of The Naked Gun because there have been so many remakes and reboots, especially of comedy films that just haven't been able to capture what was great about the original. But Aka Schaffer gets it. Seth McFarland gets it. The writers and actors get it. And this really is worthy of the comedy legacy of the original Naked Gun movies and the other Zaz movies that preceded it. In the comedy world, I really can't think of higher praise. And I hope that others take this movie as a license to bring back mid-budget wacky comedies like this because they have been sorely missed and shouldn't just be sent to streaming services. They're made to be seen in a big room with strangers with everyone laughing together.
The only thing that really detracts from the movie to me is the inherent fact that not all of the jokes land, which comes with the territory. And I also think that the third act doesn't work quite as well as the first two acts. But when my biggest complaint about your movie is that I laughed one time per minute instead of five times per minute, that's really not so bad. I'm also happy on a side note that I can now go to other movies without having to hear this during the trailers. "That's the sound of the police."
If you're a fan of comedies like this, The Naked Gun is an absolute see it now. But in general, I'm giving the movie a high-grade it's good rating. I truly believe that if you don't mind stupid humor, you are gonna laugh more at this movie than just about any other movie this year.
So, those are my thoughts on the new Naked Gun. What do you think? Are you going to be heading out to the theaters to see it this weekend? Let me know down in the comments below. And as always, stay tuned here on the channel for the latest in movie news, reviews, box office, and more. If you haven't already, be sure to hit that subscribe button, hit the bell so you know when I'm going to be putting out a new video. But most of all, thank you for watching this video. Until next time, stay safe and I'll see you then. Bye.