By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Akiva Schaffer
• Starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston
• PG-13

The cinematic comedy is in trouble, or at least the film industry seems to think so. Whether it be the rise of streaming, the changing tastes of moviegoers, the rise of mainstream blockbusters embracing comedy as part of their main appeal – for better or worse, depending on the flick – or just the ever present nature of the internet giving everybody a chance to be funny if they wanted to, comedies have become something of a dying art, at least on the big screen.

Sounds like a mission for Akiva Schaffer, one of the last remaining bastions of the theatrical comedy, who now has the unenviable task of rebooting The Naked Gun, a series of movies that hasn’t been touched since the mid 90s and came from the glory days of the spoof film – a genre that is, also, otherwise a dying art, maybe even completely dead considering the sheer lack of them nowadays.

But Akiva Schaffer is also the master at making films that seem like bad ideas turn out great, and lo and behold, against basically all odds – and maybe a couple of inspired casting choices – The Naked Gun is good. Great, even; a throwback picture to an era of comedies that feels almost like a pipe dream at this point. And like Schaffer’s other pictures, it packs this with mile a minute jokes and sight gags that never, ever stop – if one doesn’t make you laugh, another one probably will to make up for that and soon enough you are left a fit of laughter for it’s entire runtime.

At a brisk 85 minutes, The Naked Gun never outstays it’s welcome, reliably getting across as much as it can as quickly as it can, which leads to it mostly having a strong hit rate in terms of the good stuff compared to the bad stuff. Much of the humor feels transplanted from the original films – the romantic banter in particular feels like classic Leslie Neilsen and Priscilla Presley dialogue – and the usage of sight gags and deadpan delivery keeps it’s sincerity intact, though Schaffer makes sure to give it a modern edge to it’s timing that updates it in ways that actually make sense.

I can only really reiterate that a film is “really funny” only a certain number of times before it becomes repetitive – comedies like these tend to be the most difficult to review in that regard – but also I can find a lot to talk about technically as well, thankfully. The Naked Gun is shot shockingly beautifully, with a focus on replicating the look of actual buddy cop films from the 80s, minus the digital sheen. Deep blues and backlight permeate much of the picture, and whenever Pamela Anderson first arrives in many a scene there is a dark shadow covering much of her face. While this is played for strong comedy for a good chunk of these scenes, it does show a genuine commitment to making this an actual movie to boot and not just a series of, admittedly hilarious, bits and sketches without connective tissue.

And yeah, the connective tissue is mostly only there in service of jokes and gags. But it’s halfway decent connective tissue, with a story focused on satirizing modern tech firms and CEOs in a way that feels increasingly relevant, as well something of an actual arc for Frank Drebin Jr. – even that itself is building to one very funny punchline. It’s actually super telling that, in the years since the original Naked Gun, spoof films like this actually forget to be movies and letting characters be characters in the midst of their jokes helps ground an otherwise insane reality like this one. That commitment to being an actual movie is partly why Neeson and Anderson are as great they are here. While yes they are indeed following up on the groundwork laid by the prior films, both Neeson and Anderson play this like any other film they’ve done recently, particularly Neeson who feels at home with not just the comedy elements of the script but also the action hero moments that have characterized the late period of his career.

My ultimate hope is that The Naked Gun leads to a renaissance of these kinds of films again. I don’t know if it will, but the fact we are willing to take a chance on something like this again is really great to see and the fact it’s as successful as it is is both a testament to the creative team here but also the timeless nature of the original films. As a legacy sequel and another installment in the series, it’s a blast of a time and a strong continuation. But as a rallying cry for the comedy? It’s basically exactly what we need right now, and that’s arguably more important.