The Naked Gun (2025) – Movie Reviews by Ry!

The Naked Gun (2025) – Shots of Laughter in Crooked Spoof Schemes  

The world is a place where a smile and a personal touch can bring enjoyment to the mundane.  For film, there is a sense of finding joy within a general escape.  When it comes to spoof comedies, finding that right balance becomes a matter of dancing between not enough vs. too much of a good thing.  If done right, a smile will be defined by laughs and hysterical moments.  In this review, I look at the latest legacy reboot to hit cinemas.  From a simple foundation, this film becomes a collection of outrageous moments and obscure laughs.  Even when clichés abound, The Naked Gun (2025) manages to bring the laughs in a spoof of cops and crooks. 

When a robbery and homicide lead to a sinister conspiracy, there is only one man from Police Squad that can save the day … none other than Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Nesson).  When it comes to comedies, no matter the foundational elements, it all boils down to, did you laugh.  From satires to slapsticks, striking the right tone is a matter of subjectivity and moments.  For this legacy sequel, the filmmakers manage to resurrect an older IP by threading past elements with modernized jokes, situational gags and offbeat conversations.  In this review, I will go into why this revival works, bringing about a spastic but hilarious return to The Naked Gun franchise.

The Art of the Spoof

With any film, the creatives must find a way to ground the audience to the particular foundation of its world and characters.  With a spoof comedy, that grip comes in challenging norms by building up a world through absurdity.  When you come into this film, the setup of a ‘bank robbery’ puts on display the awareness of a cop drama, but through the off-the-cuff calling of the situation.  It is here that the foundation of good guys vs. bad guys is built by striking a faux serious tone that is covered with silliness.  Through sight gags, weird props and the art of the surprise, you get a heightened enjoyment because of the self-awareness against a very generic plot: Frank Drebin Jr. must stop an evil Billionaire from taking over the world. 

The Pace of the Journey

With the spoof providing a delicate balance of humor, it becomes a matter of continuing that enjoyment through timing and presence.  As the journey to stop the ‘evil billionaire’ takes effect, we head on a path of continued laughs, as one joke becomes a springboard to another.  This revolving door of ‘cause and effect’ provides a throughline that plays with the false sense of suspense and melodramatic sequences.  This layering of moments (ex. Frank Drebin’s constant need for coffee) is hashed out at a good level of pace that builds up the strength of the spoof.  The quick hitting directive builds up anticipation, leading to a constant breaking of laughs through the obscure.

From each crime scene to the obvious melodramatic interactions with other characters (view the list of actors/actresses on the film’s IMDb page – link), situations just build upon the next through the spoof like appeal.  Situations are predictable, but it is in that self-deprecating lens that drives the enjoyment.  When everything comes to head, we head into a third act that begins to meander within the repetition.  Even with the ‘save the world’ mantra, everything collides in a spoof like climax and outrageously funny epilogue.  The Naked Gun (2025) is a grand return to the spoof comedy.  If you are a fan of Liam Nesson or spoof comedies, this is for you.  For everyone else, I believe there is enough here to make it worth seeing on the big screen.

Full Score – 4 out of 5 (Full Price)