The Naked Gun (2025)

I'm a sucker for parody movies, but a lot of them are really lazy. My favorites are Airplane!, Airplane 2: The Sequel, and Top Secret. I also enjoy Hot Shots and a couple of entries in the Scary Movie series. But that "(Something) Movie" series went seriously downhill, and the later films were just compilations of weak references and fart jokes.

The Naked Gun also ranked among my favorites. Hardly anybody remembers that Police Squad was originally a TV series, a show I remember with great fondness. The Naked Gun sequels weren't quite as good as the first, but they all had their moments.

The 2025 movie makes a passable effort at capturing the feel of its predecessors. The humor is a little uneven. At times it lifts jokes right out of Police Squad, other times the humor feels closer to Austin Powers. And occasionally the plot almost verges on serious, at least briefly. 

There's a lot of mood whiplash there, and it doesn't keep up the "laugh-a-minute" pace of the older movies. And, sadly, there are a couple of fart jokes. But it's still pretty decent, and one of the better silly comedies to come out in the last decade.

One casting quibble - The big bad guy is a tech mogul played by Danny Huston. Meanwhile, his henchman is played by Kevin Durand. Durand is often said to look a bit like Elon Musk. I can't help but wonder if it would have been funnier to have Durand play the tech billionaire, and really play up the Musk references. Heck, electric cars already play a big role in the plot. With as much as the previous Naked Gun movies made jabs at celebrities, I'm surprised this didn't occur to anybody. It just feels like a missed opportunity, but oh well.

While the new movie doesn't quite match the level of zaniness of the originals, this is a worthy continuation of the series. This is, for the most part, my kind of humor. It's a great homage, but I really miss Leslie Nielsen.