Paramount Pictures
The spoof comedy used to be a popular subgenre, however, it has largely died out since the turn of the millennium, where it slowly fizzled out as the Scary Movie franchise entries got increasingly poorer as they went on.
However, with film studios having a habit of shamelessly digging up long-dead franchises to wring extra revenue out of filmgoers’ nostalgia, it was only a question of time before one of the most well-known spoof comedy franchises would be revived, and thus here we are with a new The Naked Gun movie well over three decades on from its last installment.
As is par for the course for The Naked Gun, the plot is barely an afterthought, as the emphasis is on the relentless onslaught of jokes, quips, and gags, as Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin, Jr., buffoonishly fumbles his way through another case, and the success of the film therefore overwhelmingly hinges on the chemistry between the cast as a whole, as well as the actors’ ability to apply that all-important comic timing.
Neeson approaches the role of Frank Drebin’s son with the kind of reckless abandon necessary for such a character, and he avoids the pitfall of trying to emulate Leslie Nielsen’s approach to the franchise, instead simply having his own brand of fun with being as utterly ridiculous and clueless like only a Drebin can be.
Similarly, Pamela Anderson clearly also enjoys playing to her sillier side, her sincere chemistry with Neeson allowing both protagonists to burn brighter than expected in this cartoonish mockery of all things noir, police procedural, and any other genre the filmmakers felt like spoofing.
Largely inconsequential, the various surrounding performers fit their parts to a satisfactory extent, albeit without much nuance, but then that is to be expected for the genre that is working overtime to keep you laughing throughout its modest 85-minute runtime.
The thing the new The Naked Gun overwhelmingly gets right is a pacing where it relentlessly keeps throwing jokes and gags at the viewer, maintaining a momentum where you are left laughing without having enough to time to fully scrutinize each set-piece before the next one is thrown at you, and aside from a few jokes that are perhaps drawn out longer than they need to be, the film succeeds more than it fails at this.
There are no deeper themes or allegories to be explored here, which makes the film a breath of fresh air in a cinematic landscape where it has become the norm to analyze any smidgen of subtext to death, and any fourth wall-breaking sentiments utilized here therefore fits the subgenre’s inherent self-awareness rather than being attempts to be clever, as that is after all the last attribute you would want to ascribe to a The Naked Gun movie.
No one was expecting much from yet another deceased franchise getting the legacy treatment, but for a spoof comedy to invoke this much laughter in the year 2025, it has to find a middle ground between applying an old formula intermingled with a more contemporary pace, which it does surprisingly well, resulting in a movie that it is merely fun for the sake of being fun
Extras include Deleted, Alternate, and Extended Scenes, Outtakes and Mock Ads.
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