Displaying items by tag: The Naked Gun movie 2025

THE NAKED GUN

US, 2025, 85 minutes, Colour.

Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Danny Huston, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Eddie Yu..

Directed by Akiva Schaffer.

Many of us enjoyed the three Naked Gun spoofs decades ago as well as the television series, Police Squad. Here is an entertaining opportunity to revive memories as well as enjoy this present comedy.

Were audiences expecting Liam Neeson to be the new Leslie Nielson? The screenwriters were wary and came on the solution that Liam Neeson should be Frank Dreben all Jr, like his father, but not exactly like his father, paying homage to his father (as well as having his father intervene in the final confrontation in the form of an owl!!).

But the thing is that Leslie Nielson (and there is an amusing assonance with Liam Neeson almost looking/sounding like Leslie Nielson?) Leslie Nielson played everything not only straight-faced but almost granite-faced, not aware of his double takes on situations, probably not even aware that he took a first take. But, Liam Neeson is a more dramatic character, much more expressive with his face, and while he does play everything somewhat straightfaced with a touch of dumb and dumber, he is also sending up his so many tough guy performances in thrillers for the last almost 20 years.

Needless to say, the film is absurd, but that is what we want. A megalomaniac trying to control the world, a device to send humans back to their animal state, corral them, tame them and send them back to re-create the world. Danny Huston definitely fits the bill as the villain, as if in a James Bond film, except of course his willing participation in his final humiliations.

And, here is Pamela Anderson, offering a performance as she did in The Last Showgirl, able to play along with the comedy and, at moments, sending up her glamorous Baywatch image of the past. And her screeching jazz delaying tactic! Paul Walter Hauser plays the son of George Kennedy’s original performance – and there is a sly joke at the expense of O. J. Simpson.

As with the originals, a lot of the jokes are basic puns and misunderstandings but, in the context they get more of a laugh and they would in real life! E.g. “take a chair…”; Response “no, I’ve got enough at home”. And then she does take the chair!

So word humour, situation and absurdity humour, sexual innuendo (and a bit beyond) humour, and mostly coming one joke quickly after the other which means we can laugh out loud or just perhaps a continuous giggle or have, mostly, a smile on our face full-time

And, of course, if we enjoy this one, there may be a 2 ½, just like the original series.