My Review of "The Naked Gun (2025)"

The Naked Gun (2025) was a very unexpected sequel to the franchise. It's quite odd as everyone from the original movie has already passed away. They decided to continue on with the legacy of the original franchise. There are a fun things they did with this movie but ultimately it didn't gel together so nicely with me. I can see how others can enjoy this movie though.

It all starts out with a run of the mill bank robbery scene. It's probably sometime you've seen in a million action movies. A bank is being held up when a little girl innocently skips her way into the bank. Little does everyone know, well everyone that's seen the trailer probably knows, the little girl is actually Frank Drebin Junior. That's right, he's the son of the original Frank Drebin. You probably remember his appearance at the end of the third movie.

This scene is utterly ridiculous and fun. I was expecting this movie to fall along this line but the movie takes a lot of different directions all in the name of comedy. It soon goes into the direction of a mystery movie when Frank is taken off the bank case. He has to figure out a murder case. This is a great lead to meeting his love interest Beth. Little do they know, both cases are interrelated.

They all lead to a man named Danny, an evil billionaire tycoon. He's devised a very over the top evil plan of killing everyone in the world. It's pretty funny because it's a cross between Austin Powers and The Kingsmen. Now it's up to the inept Frank to stop Danny's murderous plot.

This movie does have its moments. I just wasn't overly fond of anything in particular. They're jokes I've seen and heard before but with a twist to it. There's even a sex scene that's reminiscent of Zoolander in this movie. I think maybe what threw me off was the inconsistent storytelling of the jokes. In comedies there's generally a signature feel to it and this one felt like there were a lot of hands writing the same story.

I felt the new type of comedy where it adds the ridiculous nature of wacky wild scenarios in already crazy scenes. Then there's the comedy of pop culture cameos. I find those don't really work after a while because a movie can age out of those jokes. Then there's also the word play jokes. The word play jokes are kind of an ode to the old movies of the franchise.

All of these jokes were done okay but they felt like they were all mediocre. Sort of like a jack of all trades rather than a master of one. I felt like the writers here felt compelled to lean into the old franchise style of jokes and were limited with what they could really do. In some ways, I would have preferred that the writers felt free to do what they wanted with their own franchise. I think they they would have pulled off a really fun movie with that. That of course is very difficult because studios are all about money and they're more inclined to bet on a well known property than a brand new one. I get it and it's a darn shame. I really felt there was a ton of potential with this movie but it was marred with sacrifices.

Overall, I had some fun with this movie but the unevenness of the tone of comedy kind of threw me off. Everyone in the movie did a great job but ultimately there were moments were I genuinely felt bored. It could be the fact that I've seen a ton of these movies and it just felt like rehashed jokes with twists. I have to give this movie a 5.5 out of 10.