Surely you can’t be serious
The Naked Gun (2025): 9 out of 10: Comedy is a strange beast. Most modern comedies commit the cinematic equivalent of showing you the punchline before the joke even starts. You sit through the trailer, chuckle at a couple of decent gags, and then when you finally see the movie, you realize those exact same jokes were the only good ones the film had.
The Naked Gun reboot does something almost shocking in today’s marketing landscape: The trailer undersells the movie.
The promotional clips floating around online featuring the pre-credit opening scene is actually one of the weaker moments in the film. The real comedy gold is buried deeper inside, in a movie that fully understands what made the original Police Squad! TV show and Naked Gun movies work: relentless absurdity delivered with complete deadpan sincerity.
And surprisingly, they pull it off.
Plot Synopsis
Frank Drebin is back, or at least a modern descendant of the original bumbling detective, and once again he is stumbling his way through a major criminal conspiracy while leaving a trail of chaos in his wake.
The plot involves a tech-bro villain whose grand scheme involves building luxurious Fallout-style apocalypse bunkers for the rich. His plan includes stocking them with endless Weird Al Yankovic entertainment for the survivors, which is both hilariously bizarre and a clever nod to the fact that Weird Al himself appeared in all three of the original Naked Gun films.
Along the way, Frank battles criminals, irritates his long-suffering police captain, wrecks multiple locations, and accidentally disrupts a major UFC event held at the spectacularly named PonziScheme.com Stadium.
The story itself is largely an excuse to move from one elaborate gag to the next, which is exactly how these movies are supposed to work.
The Good
The biggest surprise here is how smart the script is.
The movie isn’t just throwing random jokes at the wall. The humor operates on multiple levels: wordplay, visual gags, background jokes, absurd plot twists, and long-form set pieces that build and escalate.
One particularly memorable bit involves Frank eating a chili dog while driving and then desperately searching for a bathroom. It’s a beautifully structured piece of escalating physical comedy, and also one of those situations most viewers have probably experienced themselves at some unfortunate point in life.
The film absolutely nails the classic Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker style humor: jokes happening in the foreground, background jokes happening simultaneously, and dialogue that is often hilarious simply because the characters treat ridiculous statements with total seriousness.
It’s also packed with blink-and-you-miss-it jokes. For example, during that fight sequence in a stadium, as I stated above, the venue is casually labeled PonziScheme.com Stadium. The movie never draws attention to it, it’s just sitting there for viewers who notice.
That style of humor means the film genuinely rewards repeat viewings, which is extremely unusual for modern comedies.
There’s also a fantastic five-to-six minute sequence about halfway through the film that completely raises the stakes for the movie’s absurdity. Fans of the cult horror film Jack Frost. No, not the Michael Keaton snowman movie, but the infamous Shannon Elizabeth bathtub scene snowman movie will immediately recognize what the film is referencing.
It’s barely hinted at in the trailers at all, and it’s probably the single funniest extended gag in the movie.
Pure chef’s kiss.
The Weird Al (And Wonderful)
One of the things this movie understands perfectly is that Naked Gun humor thrives on bizarre throwaway jokes.
Frank being revealed as a massive Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan is exactly the kind of random character detail the series thrives on. (When Frank is asked if he read the suspect their Miranda rights, he responds, “What? I’m pretty sure it’s Carrie that writes. Miranda is a lawyer, Charlotte’s an art dealer, and Samantha is a whore.”)
CCH Pounder shows up as the no-nonsense police captain, and she’s excellent in the role, delivering her dialogue with just the right amount of deadpan frustration. At one point Frank shows up at her house at three in the morning and is threatening to wake her husband, who has a huge presentation the next day. The film keeps emphasizing how important it is for him to get a full night’s sleep. (This scene reminded me of the scene in Casino Royale where Bond breaks into M’s house.)
Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson get into a tiff, and Frank says he thought it was true love. He even wrote her a song and rented studio space. If you stay through the end credits, you actually get to hear the song complete with Frank playing with a drum machine and commenting how easy the guitar is.
It’s exactly the kind of very unexpected throwaway joke/callback that makes these movies fun.
The Bad
The opening scene, ironically the one most heavily featured in the marketing, isn’t nearly as strong as the rest of the film. It’s perfectly fine, but it doesn’t showcase the movie at its best. The film throws gags at the screen at such a rapid pace that you certainly will not catch them all. But honestly, that’s always been part of the formula.
The Ugly
Purists who expect the exact magic of the Leslie Nielsen era may struggle a little with the reboot. Those films were lightning in a bottle. Still, for my money, this is the second-best of the four films.
This movie gets very close to capturing that tone, but nostalgia is a powerful thing, and not every viewer will be ready to accept a new version of Frank Drebin.
In Conclusion
The new Naked Gun reboot understands something most modern comedies have forgotten: that joke density matters.
Instead of building toward a handful of big punchlines, the movie fills every scene with background jokes, visual gags, wordplay, and absurd throwaway moments. Some jokes land, some don’t, but the sheer volume ensures that the audience is almost always laughing at something.
Even better, it’s the rare comedy that gets funnier on repeat viewings, because you inevitably catch jokes you missed the first time. The Naked Gun may not completely replace the magic of the original films, but it captures their chaotic spirit far better than anyone had any right to expect.
And if nothing else, any movie that features a UFC fight at PonziScheme.com Stadium deserves at least a respectful nod.
