{"id":33646,"date":"2025-07-30T14:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/33646\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T14:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:47:10","slug":"is-the-naked-gun-worth-watching-critics-deliver-verdict-on-liam-neeson-reboot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/33646\/","title":{"rendered":"Is The Naked Gun worth watching? Critics deliver verdict on Liam Neeson reboot"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Naked Gun <\/a>will soon give the beloved comedy franchise a new lease of life in cinemas, with a reboot starring Liam Neeson<\/a> and Pamela Anderson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neeson takes on the role of Frank Drebin Jr, the son of Leslie Nielsen’s iconic character who has taken over as head of Police Academy. With a new case landing in his lap, Frank joins forces with Anderson’s Beth Davenport after she comes to him for help when her brother goes missing.<\/p>\n

The classic film franchise is known for its silly comedy and outrageous gags, and critics who were lucky enough to see the movie early shared their thoughts on social media about whether they think the reboot is just as strong.<\/p>\n

\"USA.<\/p>\n

The reboot follows the exploits of Frank Drebin’s son, played by Liam Neeson, and his work with the Police Academy. (Paramount Pictures)<\/p>\n

Reboots, and spiritual successors, are often tricky to get right, but critic Sean Chandler<\/a> wrote on X that the movie manages to achieve that: “The Naked Gun is hilarious from beginning to end. I missed multiple jokes because the theater was laughing too loud.<\/p>\n

“They just nailed the classic Naked Gun and deadpan comedy [with] its own flavour and not just copying the past. A comedy legacy sequel done right.”<\/p>\n

IndieWire’s David Ehrlich was also a fan of the film, as he wrote on X<\/a>: \u201cThere are like six different scenes in The Naked Gun that made me laugh so hard I cried. Even the title card is funny. I wrote \u2018SO DUMB (complimentary)\u2019 in my notebook several times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USA.<\/p>\n

The movie was celebrated by critics in early reactions to the film, with many commending the reboot for keeping the spirit of the comedy. (Paramount Pictures)<\/p>\n

This sentiment was shared by critic Zach Pope<\/a>, who remarked that the film “killed” him with the sheer force of its comedy. He wrote: “I cried from laughing, I have a total 6 pack now, & there were multiple times I could not recover to hear the next gag or scene. If this movie doesn\u2019t succeed then we deserve the most depressing movies for the next decade. God I\u2019m still laughing.”<\/p>\n

Movie Maker critic Dimitri Kraus compared the film to another outrageous cinematic franchise as he said of the film<\/a>: “The new Naked Gun has the highest joke-to-minute ratio since Jackass Forever, [it] really is a small miracle that a movie like this exists in the current theatrical climate. It will probably make like 5 dollars total but I was howling with laughter at this hysterical fever dream.”<\/p>\n

The Naked Gun movie proved to be a hit for most critics, it seemed, as critic Drew Magray wrote on Bluesky<\/a> that the movie “brought the whole house down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebooting the Naked Gun franchise was never going to be an easy task, given how beloved the 1988 movie is and its follow ups are. Actually, a fourth sequel was in the works<\/a> for some time, but after that failed to come to fruition it appeared to be the end of the road, until The Naked Gun.<\/p>\n

The Naked Gun premieres in UK cinemas on Friday, 1 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Naked Gun will soon give the beloved comedy franchise a new lease of life in cinemas, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,20240,20239,7521,2839,7522,3770,20238,19193,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-33646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-frank-drebin","tag-landmark-media","tag-liam-neeson","tag-movies","tag-pamela-anderson","tag-paramount","tag-police-academy","tag-the-naked-gun","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}