How ‘Naked Gun’ shoots for laughs but misses the target
The Naked Gun (2025, directed by Akiva Schaffer) is the last cackle for a generation that is being overturned by funny shorts on TikTok. This film resonates more with the older millennial and Generation X sets.
This sort of comedy is not to the palate of the young ones. There are so many inside jokes from the franchise that was (past tense) successful decades ago. The last Naked Gun was practically the last millennium.
Liam Neeson takes over the franchise (well, if there will be renewed interest in a franchise that is hopelessly stuck in the last century). He is the son of Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), and he has followed in the footsteps of his hapless, clumsy police officer father.
The only interesting thing about this movie is to check out the onscreen chemistry with Pamela Anderson (who does have more bite with her comedic chops), who happens to be his real-life lover. It is disconcerting to see Neeson in a comedy, even though he has been in a smattering of comedic work (Derry Girls). He is funny, but it works because of the cast he deals with, particularly the always-reliable Paul Walter Hauser, who feeds into the hilarity of the scenes. Trust that it is the schlubby guy who brings in the truly comedic turns, focusing on the body.
The script is crisp and funny but hopelessly resonant only to a sector of society whose humor has been informed by cinematic spoofs instead of TikTok shorts. It is the wordiness of the script that makes this film so anachronistic.
The banter between Neeson and Danny Huston about Black Eyed Peas is one of the funniest in the movie because the joke is that these are two quite serious actors with a robust filmography in serious dramatic cinema, talking about something so out of left field that one cannot help but let out a nervous chuckle.
I think this is the death knell of this film because it offers nothing to the TikTok generation: no silly dances to excise from the movie, no catchy banter to be segmented for virality. This is the strongest argument for a reckoning on comedy writing: that one should not be able to keep up with the times, but should separate oneself from the fading laughter of the last century.
You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social
