The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker gag-per-second style of comedy pioneered by “Airplane” (1980) and perfected with “The Naked Gun” (1988) couldn’t be trademarked, but few movies or TV series have attempted to precisely copy it. The closest is probably “Angie Tribeca” (2016-18), but that show’s mimicry struck me as being too direct.
Putting themselves even more in the crosshairs of a comparison they can’t win are writer-director Akiva Schaffer and two co-writers, and star Liam Neeson, for a legacy sequel in the “Naked Gun” franchise itself. It’s lazily titled “The Naked Gun,” but that’s one of the few misfires. They don’t dodge the bullet of the direct comparison, but they do understand the tone and rhythms of the Z-A-Z formula and craft a sequel that’s on par with “NG 2 ½: The Smell of Fear” and easily better than “NG 33 1/3: The Final Insult.”
“Naked Gun 4” includes callbacks to the trilogy, namely the fact that Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Leslie Nielsen’s L.A. detective lieutenant, but also sight gags like “Police” and “Squad” being on opposite sides of the frosted doors. However, repetition is not the winning formula for a comedy, and Schaffer, Doug Mand and Dan Gregor know this.
“The Naked Gun” (2025)
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Writers: Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, Akiva Schaffer
Stars: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser
They end up achieving what Drebin Jr. outlines when speaking to the portrait of his late father: “I want to be just like you, but at the same time be completely different and original.”
Both classic and modern
Many jokes are in the classic structure, like when Drebin Jr. invites femme fatale Beth (Pamela Anderson) to “take a chair” and she absconds with it. But “NG 4” smoothly slides in fresh references that illustrate Frank’s laggardness (back in his day, the only electric things were toasters, chairs and Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Chicago”) and oblivious recklessness (he has shot thousands of people).
Direct parodies are hard when serving a fractured audience, but “NG 4” knows how to do this too. Frank tricks an injured henchman (Kevin Durand) into spilling information in a fake hospital room with spies just outside. This comes from “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.” But you can chuckle without knowing that, especially since the sequence then spirals into a series of additional fake rooms, with internal affairs spying on the police surveillance team, and so forth.
Remarkably, the film includes specifically 21st century humor without ruining the throwback noir parody vibe. The suave lead suspect, Richard Cane (Danny Huston), invites Drebin Jr. to his gentlemen’s club. While pitching its throwback elements, he includes the word “retarded,” which was essentially banned from conversation after the trilogy. “Can you still say that word?” Drebin Jr. inquires. “In my club you can,” Cane assures him, and we know it is indeed a rarified club.
Z-A-Z wouldn’t write a joke quite like that (I suspect it might come from producer Seth MacFarlane), but it clicks here because Neeson – and indeed all the actors, including the Priscilla Presley-channeling Anderson – understand how to play everything straight despite the absurdities going on all around you, and within your own dialog. It helps that the aforementioned verbal exchange is immediately followed by the goofiness of Drebin Jr. not knowing his way out of the room, thus being unable to make a suave exit.
Not quite enough CGI to ruin it
I fretted over a moment in the trailer – which also kicks off the movie’s narrative – wherein Drebin Jr. is disguised as a lollipop-carrying girl; CGI then morphs him into a tall adult male. The original films didn’t use CGI and used practical effects sparingly and with purposeful goofiness, like when the outfielder’s head falls off in the highlight reel.
As it turns out, because “NG 4” is reasonably spare with its digital effects, it doesn’t stray far from what’s been established. It almost goes too far with CGI in a final sequence, mostly for the sake of minimizing believable violence, but not enough to sour me on the overall experience.
The flawless pacing and editing of the 1988 film aren’t matched here. The randomly introduced WWFC (a pro-wrestling/MMA hybrid) arena event doesn’t have the scope of the original’s baseball game, and we don’t stick around there too long.
Conversely, in a funny montage (with a great needle drop) that shows Frank and Beth clicking as romantic partners, the writers and editors are willing to let things run long for the sake of the absurdity of a supernatural snowman. At times a loose, riffing quality intrudes on “Naked Gun 4.”
And I can’t say that after one viewing, Schaffer’s film has close to the number of guffaws provided by the O.G. It’s more smile-worthy than gut-busting. But it’s a worthy sequel without contributions from the Zucker brothers or any actors from the originals, save one who you can perhaps guess. It does indeed achieve what Drebin Jr. hoped for when talking to his dad’s portrait. I’d lay 90 percent odds we’ll see a “Naked Gun 5.” (Though there’s only a 50-50 chance of that.)