For newcomers to this beloved comedy series, The Naked Gun franchise represents one of Hollywood's most classic parody film series. It began with "Police Squad!", a 1982 TV show created by the legendary comedy trio of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (known as ZAZ), who had just achieved massive success with their airplane disaster parody "Airplane!" in 1980, the TV show starred Leslie Nielsen as Detective Frank Drebin. The show featured rapid-fire sight gags, wordplay, and visual jokes that spoofed classic police procedural dramas.
Despite critical acclaim, "Police Squad!" was cancelled after just six episodes because ABC executives claimed it required "too much attention from viewers" - the dense comedy style meant audiences had to actually watch carefully to catch all the jokes, rather than having it on in the background. This absurd cancellation reason became legendary in TV history, essentially punishing the show for being too clever.
Fortunately, the cancellation led to something bigger. The creators transformed their TV concept into "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)", which became a massive hit and spawned two equally successful sequels in 1991 and 1994. Leslie Nielsen, previously known for serious dramatic roles, became a comedy icon by playing everything completely straight-faced while chaos erupted around him.
The franchise's signature style packed jokes into every frame - dialogue, visual gags, background details, and throwaway moments - creating rewatchable comedies where fans discovered new jokes on each viewing. What TV executives saw as requiring "too much attention" became the franchise's greatest strength.
After Nielsen's passing in 2010, this franchise seemed finished forever. The 2025 reboot starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. represents the first attempt to continue this comedy legacy for a new generation, maintaining the same dense, absurdist humor that made the originals classics.
The Full Story
The movie starts with Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., played by Liam Neeson, who works for the LAPD Police Squad just like his famous father. In the opening scene, Frank disguises himself as a schoolgirl to stop a gang of bank robbers. Yes, Liam Neeson in pigtails and a plaid skirt. While he's busy catching the bad guys, he doesn't realize that this whole bank robbery was actually just a trick to distract everyone. The real criminals were stealing something much more important from a safe deposit box - a special gadget called the "P.L.O.T. Device".
After this mission, Frank's boss Chief Davis tells him he can't work in the field anymore because his crazy way of fighting crime is causing too many problems and lawsuits for the police department. Frank is really upset about this because he wants to be a great cop like his dad. He even prays to his father's spirit, asking him to send an owl as a sign that he approves of what Frank is doing.
Frank then gets assigned to investigate what looks like a car accident. A software engineer named Simon Davenport crashed his car and died, and Frank thinks Simon killed himself on purpose. But Simon's sister Beth, who writes crime novels, doesn't believe her brother would commit suicide. She thinks someone murdered him. Frank tries to convince her not to investigate this on her own because it could be dangerous.
During his investigation, Frank discovers a matchbook at the crash scene. He then meets Richard Cane, who was Simon's boss at a tech company called Edentech. Cane seems really friendly and even gives the police department a fancy self-driving electric car as a gift. Frank tries to drive this car, but it goes completely crazy and causes all sorts of chaos. Cane also tells Frank about his personal nightclub and recommends he visit it. Frank notices that the matchbook he found at Simon's crash has the exact same logo as Cane's nightclub, which makes him suspicious.
What Frank doesn't know is that Cane is actually the main villain. In private, Cane shows his evil plan to other rich people. He wants to use the stolen P.L.O.T. Device (which stands for "Primordial Law of Toughness") to turn all regular people into violent barbarians who will fight and kill each other. This way, most of the world's population will die, leaving only the wealthy people like Cane, who will be safe in an underground bunker while everyone else destroys themselves.
Frank continues investigating and talks to one of the bank robbers he caught earlier. The robber tells him about the safe deposit box that was stolen, and Frank realizes this connects to Simon's death. Frank goes to Cane's nightclub with Beth to look for clues. While they're there, Beth creates a distraction by getting on stage and doing a hilariously terrible singing performance while Frank sneaks around the club fighting security guards to get to the security camera footage. In the footage, Frank discovers that Simon had been secretly meeting with a journalist.
Unfortunately, Frank's boss Chief Davis suspends him from the police force for not following orders and causing too much trouble. Frank feels really depressed and thinks about giving up being a police officer entirely. But Beth stays with him and tries to cheer him up. She helps him realize that maybe it's time to move on from trying to live up to his father's memory. Frank and Beth end up going on a romantic weekend trip to a mountain lodge.
At the lodge, something completely bizarre happens. Frank and Beth have a romantic encounter that somehow involves a magical, living snowman. At first, the snowman joins in with their romance, but then it becomes jealous and murderous when Frank and Beth ignore it. This whole threesome sequence is absolutely ridiculous and over-the-top, which is exactly the kind of silly humor the Naked Gun movies are famous for.
Meanwhile, Frank finds the journalist that Simon was meeting with, but unfortunately, the journalist has been murdered. Even worse, Frank gets tricked into making himself look guilty of the murder. The bad guys try to kill Frank using the same method they used on Simon - they take control of the self-driving car remotely and try to crash it. Frank is trapped in the car as it speeds toward danger, crashing through balloons and bees and even getting a new windshield installed while driving. Finally, Frank accidentally activates "Clippy" (the annoying Microsoft Office assistant), who actually helps him by unlocking the car doors so he can escape.
Back at police headquarters, Frank learns that the entire Police Squad has been shut down because of all the problems he's caused. Beth reveals that her brother Simon was worried that the P.L.O.T. Device would be used for evil purposes, but Frank starts to suspect that Beth might be using him for her own reasons. He gets angry and leaves her house.
Frank captures one of Cane's henchmen, a guy named Gustafson, and scares him into confessing the whole evil plan. Gustafson tells Frank that Cane plans to activate the P.L.O.T. Device during the New Year's ball drop at a mixed martial arts fight at a place called "Ponzi-scheme.com Arena." Frank gets a special earpiece that will protect him from the P.L.O.T. Device's effects and heads to the arena to stop Cane.
At the arena, Beth also shows up because she wants to kill Cane to get revenge for her brother's death. But Cane sees this coming because he read about it in one of Beth's crime novels, so he knows exactly what she's planning to do.
Frank finds the P.L.O.T. Device hidden inside the giant New Year's balls that are supposed to drop during the countdown. But disaster strikes when Frank loses his pants just as the balls drop, and he ends up accidentally exposing himself to the entire audience. Because he's standing there in his underwear, nobody takes him seriously when he tries to warn them to evacuate the building.
The P.L.O.T. Device activates, and chaos erupts throughout the city. Everyone who isn't protected by special earpieces becomes violent and mindless, fighting each other in the streets. Frank has to fight his way through crowds of innocent people who are now attacking everything in sight. He tries to reach Cane, but the villain is escaping and Frank can't catch up to him.
Just when everything seems hopeless, Frank's father's spirit appears in the form of an owl, just like Frank had prayed for at the beginning of the movie. The owl swoops down and helps Frank by carrying him through the air and even attacking Cane by pooping on him. This blinds Cane long enough for Frank to catch up to him. Amazingly, Frank defeats the villain with just one punch to the stomach, and Cane collapses.
Beth is about to shoot Cane in revenge for her brother's death, but Frank talks her out of it, convincing her that killing Cane won't bring Simon back or make her feel better. Instead, Frank and Beth work together to use the P.L.O.T. Device to reverse its effects and calm down all the violent people in the city. With everyone back to normal, the police arrest Cane, and Frank and Beth embrace as the city is saved.
In the ending, we learn that Frank is being "investigated" by "Internal Affairs" but this turns out to be a joke - Internal Affairs is actually the name of a tropical resort where Frank is relaxing with Beth, enjoying their time sipping cocktails together after saving the day.
The movie ends with a post-credits scene featuring "Weird Al" Yankovic performing a song to an empty bunker, which is where all of Cane's rich friends were supposed to hide while the P.L.O.T. Device destroyed the world.
The story is completely ridiculous and filled with non-stop jokes, visual gags, and absurd situations, just like the original Naked Gun movies. It's designed to make you laugh at how silly everything is, while still telling a complete story about Frank learning to be his own person instead of just trying to copy his famous father.
My Review
I'm not going to lie - when I first heard they were making a new Naked Gun movie with Liam Neeson, I thought it was the dumbest idea ever. Leslie Nielsen was irreplaceable, and most comedy reboots are terrible. But this movie completely changed my mind, and here's why.
The Genius of Casting Liam Neeson
Putting Liam Neeson in this role was absolutely brilliant, and it works for the same reason Leslie Nielsen worked in the original. Nielsen wasn't originally a comedy actor - he was known for serious dramatic roles before "Airplane!" turned him into a comedy legend. Neeson is in the exact same situation. He's spent years doing serious action movies where he plays the tough guy, so seeing him do completely ridiculous things while maintaining that same serious, gravelly voice is hilarious.
The key is that Neeson plays everything completely straight, just like Nielsen did. When he's dressed as a schoolgirl stopping bank robbers, or when he's having a threesome with a magical snowman, or when his pants fall down in front of thousands of people, he never breaks character or acts like he knows it's funny. He delivers every ridiculous line with the same intensity he'd use to say "I will find you and I will kill you" in a Taken movie.
The Comedy Actually Works
What impressed me most was how the movie captured the specific style of humor from the original Naked Gun films. It's not trying to be modern or edgy - it's deliberately old-fashioned in the best way possible. The jokes come fast and furious (there's about one joke per minute of the 85-minute runtime), and they range from clever wordplay to completely absurd visual gags.
Some of my favorite moments included the running gag where people keep swapping coffee cups, the heat-vision sequence that goes completely off the rails, references to OJ Simpson and Bill Cosby that somehow don't feel mean-spirited, and Frank Jr. deadpanning "I did it" while holding a bloody knife. The snowman threesome scene was so unexpected and bizarre that I couldn't stop laughing.
Pamela Anderson Was Perfect
I was worried about Pamela Anderson being in this movie, but she was absolutely fantastic. She completely understood the tone and played her character with just the right mix of sincerity and absurdity. Her improvised jazz singing scene in the nightclub was one of the funniest things I've seen all year. It was painful to listen to, but that was exactly the point, and she committed to it completely.
Anderson has always been better at comedy than people give her credit for, and this movie lets her show that talent. She has great chemistry with Neeson, and their relationship feels genuine even when completely ridiculous things are happening around them.
The Supporting Cast
Everyone else in the movie understood the assignment too. Paul Walter Hauser as Captain Ed Hocken Jr. was great, and CCH Pounder as Chief Davis had perfect timing as the straight-person reacting to all the chaos. Danny Huston made a wonderfully over-the-top villain, and even the smaller roles like Cody Rhodes as a bartender and Busta Rhymes as a bank robber were memorable.
What Worked Really Well
The movie respected the original films without just copying them. It felt like a legitimate continuation of the Naked Gun universe, not a cheap imitation. The pacing was excellent - at 85 minutes, it never overstayed its welcome. Every scene either advanced the plot or delivered jokes, often both at the same time.
The visual gags were creative and well-executed. The movie understood that part of what made the originals great was how they packed jokes into every corner of the frame. While some critics said this new one doesn't have quite as many background gags, there were still plenty of details to catch on repeat viewings.
The Few Things That Didn't Work
The movie isn't perfect. It loses steam a bit toward the end. The final action sequence gets a little too focused on the actual plot and not enough on the comedy. The owl scene with Frank Jr.'s father's spirit, while touching, felt slightly out of place in a movie that had been so grounded in absurd reality.
A few jokes didn't land quite right, and occasionally the timing was off compared to the rapid-fire perfection of the original trilogy. But honestly, these are minor complaints about a movie that had no business being as good as it was.
Why This Movie Matters
What makes me happiest about this movie is that it proves you can still make this kind of comedy. Hollywood has mostly abandoned theatrical comedies in favor of action movies and superhero films, so it's refreshing to see a pure, joke-driven comedy that exists for no other reason than to make people laugh.
The movie also shows that you can honor a beloved franchise without destroying it. Instead of trying to modernize everything or make it "relevant," they just focused on what made the original films work and did their best to recreate that magic with new characters and situations.
The Audience Experience
Watching this in a theater was incredible. I haven't heard an audience laugh that consistently and loudly in years. People were gasping for air during some sequences, and you could feel the joy in the room. It reminded me why theatrical movie experiences matter, especially for comedies.
Final Thoughts
"The Naked Gun" (2025) is everything a comedy reboot should be. It respects the source material, understands what made it special, and creates something new that feels both nostalgic and fresh. Liam Neeson proved he can be just as funny as Leslie Nielsen, just in a different way.
This is the funniest movie I've seen in years, and it gives me hope that Hollywood might start making more comedies like this.
If you loved the original Naked Gun movies, you'll love this one. If you've never seen the originals, this is still hilarious and accessible. And if you're tired of every movie being dark and serious, this is the perfect antidote.
A successful return to form for both the franchise and theatrical comedy in general. Go see it in theaters with friends and prepare to laugh until your face hurts.
Watch on Apple TV or Amazon Prime