Directed by Akiva Schaffer — Screenplay by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Akiva Schaffer.
One of the best pieces of marketing for a film that I’ve seen this year is an ad for The Naked Gun that features Liam Neeson prominently asking viewers to go back to theaters to watch comedy films. At the end of the ad, we hear Liam Neeson do a classic Leslie Nielsen-style fart-machine joke. It is a delightfully silly note to end on, but the message at the heart of the ad rings true. Comedy films have largely been relegated to being streaming fodder. If you want to watch a new comedy film, you’re more likely to find one on Netflix or on Amazon Prime Video than in the movie theaters. For example, Happy Gilmore 2 recently premiered on Netflix, just like the John Cena and Idris Elba vehicle Heads of State premiered on Prime Video. Unfortunately, major comedy stars have flocked to the streaming services and left movie theaters without successful comedies for quite some time. To reignite the spark that would keep comedy movies thriving on the big screen, we now have a reboot or legacy sequel of The Naked Gun, the Leslie Nielsen vehicle from the 80s and 90s, filled with spoof film humor, some of which has become quite iconic. For the legacy sequel, the studio turned to the Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer, director of Popstar: Never Stop, Never Stopping, as well as producer Seth MacFarlane, with the hopes of finally releasing a good spoof comedy film in the theaters again. Thankfully, with screen legends leading the picture, the reboot of The Naked Gun is a success. It is, undoubtedly, one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year, and I hope it’s the beginning of a new trend where comedy films can once again thrive in theaters.
Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun follows LAPD Police Squad Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (played by Liam Neeson) — the son of Leslie Nielsen’s main character from the original films — as he begins the film by taking down a group of bank robbers singlehandedly. However, because his methods are deemed a legal liability, Drebin Jr. is reassigned. After investigating a car crash, Drebin is approached by Beth Davenport (played by Pamela Anderson), whose brother died in the aforementioned car crash. Though he initially deemed the car crash to be a suicide, further investigation reveals that the death of Beth’s brother is somehow connected to an influential tech billionaire (Richard Cane, played by Danny Huston), who secretly plans to use a so-called ‘P.L.O.T. Device’ to revert humanity back to our most barbaric impulses.
Replacing Leslie Nielsen in the lead role was never gonna be an easy feat, as the late great screen legend made that role his own, and still has a prominent place in memes and joking culture. Liam Neeson, despite having a fairly similar name to Leslie Nielsen, probably wasn’t the kind of actor that most people would’ve thought could nail that part, given his penchant for action films late in his career. Yet, Liam Neeson is sensationally good in this film, as he understands how to take every deliberately dumb joke at face value and play it deadpan or straight. Akiva Schaffer clearly understood the material that he brought back to life, and Liam Neeson is not only surprisingly good at this stuff, but he also arrives ready and able to turn in one of the best comedy performances of the year. With an actor as legendary as him, one might think that he wouldn’t risk putting himself in certain embarrassing situations that this film asks him (e.g., chili-dog toilet humor), but there were clearly no ifs or buts when it came to joining this film. Neeson seems to have had a great time filming this, and the same goes for his leading lady, Pamela Anderson, who is having a little bit of a renaissance on screen in recent years. Both Neeson and Anderson give it their all, putting themselves in silly situations and earning laugh after laugh after laugh.
Like the original spoof film, The Naked Gun, this modern legacy sequel understands the ‘Gatling gun,’ multiple-jokes-a-minute approach that made the original film such a success. Admittedly, as a direct result of this approach, not every joke lands as well as the next one, but more than enough earn chuckles for it to feel like a thoroughly worthwhile and funny experience, as Neeson and Anderson expertly earn laughs with both raunchy humor, through simple word play, and by consistently getting more and more dumb as it goes along, but, thankfully, in the best way possible. Some of my personal highlights include purposefully dated references (e.g., the Black Eyed Peas), the way the film amusingly zigs when you expect it to zag in the climactic action scenes, and a wintery throuple romance deviation that hilariously blends genre tropes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the film with a crowd, which I think might’ve made my first viewing even more special. When I saw the film in theaters, I was one of only two people in the room, which, again, emphasizes the struggle that big-screen comedies have in their pursuit of a large enough audience to earn a profit.
Akiva Schaffer’s legacy sequel to The Naked Gun deserves better than empty theaters. It is, undoubtedly, one of the funniest films of the year that, notably, has a relatively brisk pace and really fun end credits bits. Here you have screen legends skillfully delivering joke after joke after joke, and the film doesn’t outstay its welcome. What’s not to like? It’s so nice to see a genuinely good comedy in theaters. Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson truly go all in with this, and it’s so fun to watch. Don’t skip it.
7.9 out of 10
– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 