Comedy can at times be an art form, but it’s just as frequently a science. Which is to say that there’s some hard numerical data behind your enjoyment of the genre. Appreciation of a farce might be heightened by solid characterization, or a sense of satisfaction expanded on from a satire’s most ironic of well-clipped witticisms. Still, at the end of the day, the audience either laughs or it does not. Dependent purely on the law of averages, these things usually come down to how much they tickle the funny bone.By this metric, and perhaps this metric alone, Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun is a gratifying study in guffaws. With a rough estimate of more jokes landing than not by a ratio of two-to-one, Schaffer, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand’s relentless, rapid-fire script kept a theater of typically reserved New York City press so amused that the energy bordered on giddy. While there are more than a few comedic dead ends, and punchlines that have no force behind their wide swings—like a drunkard stumbling over their barstool—such awkwardness is quickly forgotten moments later when a better aimed gag hits square in the belly. A few times it even was hard to breathe (or for that matter notice the subsequent sequence which falls flat).cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});In other words, Leslie Nielsen would be proud. Probably.His legacy, as well as that of the original Naked Gun and Airplane! wunderkinds David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams, looms large over Naked Gun ’25, a movie obviously produced because it stems from a relic of ‘80s and ‘90s IP that somehow has yet to be mined in the 21st century. But while the work of this trio of writers, plus one legendary star, hover above Schaffer’s movie, so does the awareness that ZAZ and latter-day Nielsen never took anything too seriously, including their own legacies. As time has already proven, it’s easy to forget just how bad Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult is.So it’s perhaps a more modern comedy triumvirate whose influence can be best felt in the 2025 movie: the Lonely Island. While Schaffer is the only credited member of that comedy troupe listed on the screenplay (Jorma Taccone is credited as a consultant, and Andy Samberg at least makes a vocal cameo in the picture), the finished film feels just as descended from the late 2000s glory days of SNL digital shorts like “I’m on a Boat” and “The Ballad of Captain Jack Sparrow.” It’s irreverent and absurd, and sold with a maximalist polish by its director in a way that David Zucker never would have thought about.With excessively slick cinematography and sometimes propulsive editing, Schaffer visually and aurally highlights his modern reference points. When the film started during an ostensibly tense bank heist with a seething score which imitated a ticking clock, I even wondered for a moment whether the composer was trying to emulate Hans Zimmer or Lorne Balfe. It turned out the composer is Balfe, the maestro behind symphonic derring-do in the last three Mission: Impossible movies. (And wait until one gets to a pretty canny M:I – Fallout gag in the backstretch of the new Naked Gun.)The sophistication of the parody goes a long way toward buttressing a movie that has a disposition located somewhere between happy-go-lucky and kitchen-sink desperation. An unapologetic gag bag of a movie, Naked Gun gallops between one-liners, visual dad jokes made flesh, and even out-of-focus background bits playing out in the margins. Much of it is crass and lowbrow, but it works more than it doesn’t.Among the big wins is the casting of Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. In a riff at the modern day’s obsession with legacy sequels, Frank Drebin Jr. is the son of Nielsen’s Frank (and for that matter Priscilla Presley’s Jane) and he works at a Police Squad populated entirely by the sons of the original film’s cast, including the reliable Paul Walter Hauser as Ed Hocken Jr.. Frank has his father’s deadpan, but it’s delivered with a raspier, crankier, and noticeably Irish sense of befuddled ennui. He’s the kind of guy who laments about the good ol’ days when he hears someone mention the term “electric car.” It’s just, oddly enough, for him the good ol’ days mean “back when the only things electric were lights, the chair, and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago!”So you can imagine Frank has reason to be suspicious of billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston), a vaguely Elon Musk-like figure who made his fortune on electric cars but also wants to be seen as a tough guy. He claims that he too remembers when men were men. He likewise seems to be mixed up in the mysterious death of a scientist whose sister Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) has turned to Police Squad for help.The rest of the plot pretty much goes through all the steps you would expect, occasionally referencing the noir and procedural DNA of the O.G. Naked Gun, but more often than not favoring the aforementioned modern blockbuster touchstones. In the movie’s best moments, Schaffer and company even find a way to throw out parody altogether in favor of maximal absurdism, such as a romantic montage about Frank and Beth at a cabin in the woods that is too demented and delirious to give away.Those high points can also paper over the lower ones, such as the fact that despite being at a fleet 85 minutes, The Naked Gun ’25 is definitely running on fumes by the time its climax rolls around. Similarly Neeson brings a cantankerous charm to Frankie Jr., but when the movie attempts to lean into the aging actor’s unlikely career pivot into an action star, Naked Gun can stumble with some pretty aimless attempts at action spoofing. Also as lovely as it is to see Anderson get her flowers as a genuine actor in recent years with movies like The Last Showgirl, comedy still does not appear to be in her natural wheelhouse, and Naked Gun outright strains when trying to give Anderson a big moment involving scat jazz.There is, again, that sense of desperation in a movie that appears only too eager to try any joke, some of which were dated back when Austin Powers 2 did them more than a quarter-century ago. So I cannot bring myself to quite rave about the new Naked Gun, even when heartily recommending it to anyone in need of a good laugh these days, no matter how nakedly shameless it might really be.The Naked Gun is in theaters on Aug. 1, 2025.The post The Naked Gun Review: Liam Neeson Has Killer Deadpan appeared first on Den of Geek.