The Naked Gun (2025) Blu-ray Review: A Densely Packed, Delightfully Dumb Return to Classic Spoof Comedy

In an era where Hollywood comedies are rare and the ones we do get feel airbrushed, cautious, or overly self-aware, The Naked Gun (2025) arrives like a custard pie hurled straight at the face of subtlety. Directed by Akiva Schaffer (Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping), this revival of the classic spoof franchise doesn’t tiptoe around nostalgia; it sprints into chaos with a banana peel in one hand and a whoopee cushion in the other.

The result is a film that takes more comedic swings in a single scene than some modern comedies attempt in their entire runtime. Not every joke lands, sure, but enough of them do, and often spectacularly, to make The Naked Gun (2025) one of the most flat-out enjoyable theatrical comedies in years.

Stepping into the shoes of the late, great Leslie Nielsen was never going to be easy, but Liam Neeson approaches the role of Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the original disaster-magnet detective, with absolute commitment. The key here isn’t imitation but tone. Neeson plays it as if he’s in Taken 4 while the world around him has lost all sanity. That dead-serious gravitas makes every pratfall, every accidental discharge, and every ludicrous misunderstanding exponentially funnier. His presence anchors the film in just enough reality to make the absurdity sparkle. Watching him deliver a line like, “Justice never sleeps, but I sometimes nap in my car,” with total conviction is worth the price of admission.

The story, for what it’s worth, involves Drebin Jr. investigating a tech billionaire, played with slippery charm by Danny Huston, who may or may not be plotting something diabolical involving a self-driving police force. But really, the “plot” is just a string connecting hundreds of punchlines, visual gags, and nonsense detours. And honestly, that’s exactly how it should be.

The biggest compliment you can give The Naked Gun (2025) is that it’s absolutely crammed with jokes. Schaffer and his writers clearly took the ZAZ (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker) philosophy to heart: if a joke fails, have another one immediately behind it. The pacing is breakneck, there’s barely time to breathe between punchlines, sight gags, and verbal puns. From a priceless riff on true-crime podcasts to a riotous police-academy graduation sequence that spirals into total mayhem, the movie never stops firing. There’s even a background gag involving a running news ticker that becomes its own subplot if you pay close enough attention. This is the kind of comedy that rewards multiple viewings. I’m certain there are things I missed while laughing through the first half.

Schaffer brings his Lonely Island sensibility, a mix of deadpan parody and pure silliness, to the proceedings, balancing reverence for the original films with enough modern absurdity to make it feel fresh. Whether it’s a drone chase that devolves into a slapstick ballet or a courtroom scene that becomes an opera of incompetence, the film constantly surprises.

Neeson may be the straight man, but he’s surrounded by a murderer’s row of comic players. Pamela Anderson turns in a wonderfully self-aware performance as the love interest, a glamorous true-crime author who keeps mistaking real crimes for plot research. Her chemistry with Neeson is oddly genuine, and their romantic subplot provides some of the film’s biggest laughs, especially a dinner date that literally collapses under the weight of bad metaphors. Paul Walter Hauser shines as Drebin’s overeager partner, a man who idolizes “good cops” from 1980s TV shows and tries, disastrously, to emulate them. Meanwhile, Danny Huston hams it up beautifully as the smirking villain, leaning into every cliché as though auditioning for “Evil CEO of the Year.”

There are cameos aplenty, some blink-and-you-miss-them, others extended and gloriously ridiculous. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say that one mid-film appearance by a certain Mission: Impossible alum brought the house down at my screening.

Of course, with this many jokes flying, not all of them hit the bullseye. A few sequences drag slightly, a recurring bit about AI that doesn’t quite find a punchline, or a slapstick chase that feels edited a touch too long. But the sheer density of humor makes it hard to care. Even when a joke flops, you’re never more than ten seconds away from one that doesn’t. Importantly, The Naked Gun (2025) understands that comedy is about rhythm. The misses give the hits room to land harder. Schaffer and his team don’t apologize for the rough edges; they lean into them, embracing the goofy, anarchic energy that defined the originals.

If the 1988 film was an explosion of visual puns and banana-peel gags, this one is a digital-age firework show—louder, faster, more chaotic, but still rooted in the same spirit of cheerful stupidity. What really makes The Naked Gun (2025) work is that it doesn’t feel cynical. This isn’t a cash-grab revival or a nostalgia play; it’s a genuine attempt to bring back a style of comedy that’s all but disappeared. There’s heart here, not in the sentimental sense, but in the sheer effort and joy behind every absurd setup.

The filmmakers clearly love the originals, but they’re not afraid to modernize the formula. The world may have changed since Frank Drebin first slipped on a banana peel, but the hunger for big, silly laughter hasn’t. And while a few jokes brush close to topical humor, the film wisely avoids mean-spiritedness; it’s goofy, not cruel. Schaffer directs with visual precision, using wide shots to let the jokes breathe, a rare skill in an era of close-up comedy. Every frame seems to hide some gag: a background character, a misplaced prop, a sign with a ridiculous slogan. It’s comedy as visual jazz.

The Naked Gun (2025) is, quite simply, a hell of a good time. It’s fast, funny, and full of the kind of big, unapologetic humor that makes movie theaters erupt in laughter. Is it perfect? Not remotely. But perfection isn’t the goal, joy is. It’s the kind of movie that makes you grateful for comedies that still take risks, that still believe in the power of the pratfall and the well-timed pun. Liam Neeson proves himself an unexpectedly brilliant comic anchor, and Schaffer’s direction keeps the energy high from start to finish.

As the credits rolled, I realized there were entire joke setups I probably didn’t even catch, a testament to just how densely packed this thing is. The Naked Gun (2025) rewards repeat viewings, and if that’s not the sign of a successful comedy, I don’t know what is.

The Naked Gun hits Blu-ray and 4K UHD on 11/11, and after revisiting it last night, I can’t wait to spin it again. This is one classic every collection needs on the shelf.