The career of Liam Neeson can be split into three distinct acts.
There’s the serious Oscar-nominated dramatic actor era, where he starred in movies like Schindler’s List, Michael Collins and Star Wars.
There was the action man era, where he reinvented himself as a modern-day Charles Bronson in movies like Taken, Non-Stop and The Commuter, where he used his lumbering physique and turned himself into an unlikely action hero.
With the new version of The Naked Gun, we predict this is the beginning of Liam Neeson’s third act; he is the new Leslie Nielsen.
The context has been lost to time, but when Leslie Nielsen became a comedy star thanks to Airplane and Police Squad, he was in his mid-50s and was a solid dramatic character actor for many years before that.
When the fateful decision was made to have Nielsen play the silliness of Airplane as serious as a heart attack, it changed the trajectory of his career forever.
The original Naked Gun trilogy (which, if we are being honest, has one classic, one solid movie and one disaster) cemented Nielsen as a comedy star for the ages and was successful enough to convince Hollywood to reboot it.
The masterstroke of this movie is casting Neeson as Frank Drebin Junior; the film realises that having Liam Neeson be the butt of the joke is the joke.
Comedy performances rarely get recognised at awards season, but Neeson has rarely been better than he is here.
Similar to Ryan Gosling as Ken in Barbie, even the non-verbal, physical stuff that Neeson does in this movie is comedy gold.
The movie also gets a lot of mileage out of having Neeson act like an utter bufoon while also leaning into the deadpan comedy that made the original movies such beloved hits.
It’s hard to put into text why a comedy movie is so funny, but having Neeson act like he’s in an episode of Law and Order and everyone around him is in a Bugs Bunny cartoon is the secret to the film’s success.
Having those two styles clash worked beautifully when Leslie Nielsen did it in 1988, and it works brilliantly again in 2025.
In the new Naked Gun, Neeson picks up from where Nielsen left off (with the real Nielsen having passed away in 2010), and him being keen to follow in his dad’s footsteps.
Straight away, the film identifies and riffs on the modern Hollywood craze for rebooting old properties.
The film lets the audience know it’s also in on the joke, and we’re off to the races.
Neeson’s co-star is pop culture icon Pamela Anderson, who is having a quiet career renaissance of her own.
While her long-shot Oscar campaign for The Last Showgirl didn’t quite happen, there has been a groundswell of support for Anderson in recent years as she looks to rewrite the public narrative surrounding her.
For readers who grew up in the late 90s or early 2000s, Anderson was a tabloid attraction who made headlines for her personal life instead of her acting; she has been keen to set that story straight, and this film is a great vehicle for her talents.
Anderson is to this movie what Priscilla Presley was to the original Naked Gun movies; someone you wouldn’t think to cast, but it makes absolutely perfect sense once you see it in action.
Her character is mourning the loss of her brother, who she suspects was bumped off by an evil corporate tycoon and is looking to get to the bottom of what she suspects is a murder.
Neeson and Anderson have great chemistry together, and they are the engine of the movie.
The plot is wholly incidental in a movie like this – this isn’t the Coen Brothers – but the movie moves well enough from point A to B to C that it never lulls.
What’s refreshing about The Naked Gun is the 85-minute runtime; it’s the rare movie that doesn’t waste a single second and crams in as many jokes as possible.
It leaves you wanting more, which is the highest praise you can give a comedy, and you’ll want to see it again to catch all the jokes you missed the first time around.
The success of this movie is in large part down to the stylings of director Akiva Schaffer, best known as a member of The Lonely Island.
The Lonely Island were trailblazers of internet comedy and were one of the first comedy acts to make the move from the internet to the mainstream.
Their style of humour has both fans and detractors, but their brand of comedy is perfect for something like The Naked Gun.
In Schaffer’s previous directorial efforts, such as Hot Rod or the massively underrated Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, every minute of the movie was crammed with a silly joke or five, and became cult hits in the process.
His background in sketch comedy serves him brilliantly here; every scene in this movie is a chance for him to throw a dozen comedic ideas at the wall (and have it largely stick).
As we noted in our Friendship review a few weeks ago, a laugh-out-loud comedy is one of the great cinema experiences and something that can’t be as easily replicated at home.
At a time when the studio comedy is hanging on by a thread, here’s a genuinely hilarious and silly movie like The Naked Gun to remind us that these kinds of films are best seen with a crowd.
It’s a cliché that laughter is the best medicine, and for just under 90 minutes, The Naked Gun invites you to laugh yourself silly with family, friends and other moviegoers.
Sometimes a cinemagoer might be in the mood to see a restoration of Amadeus at the IFI, the cinematic version of caviar and lobster, but sometimes you just want a burger and chips, which in this case, is best represented by The Naked Gun.
We predict a long and healthy life for this film in cinemas, on TV and on streaming.
Surely we can’t be serious?
We are serious – and don’t call us Shirley!