Do you ever feel like if you had a nickel for every time someone says “reboot” you’d be a millionaire, or, worse, kill (or slightly injure, we’re not monsters) the next person that says it? I know I have. Even reboots have reboots. Take the upcoming Superman. It’s a reboot of Man of Steel, which was a reboot of Superman Returns, the attempt to reboot the classic original Superman films starring Christopher Reeve. It’s like creativity has been taken to the shed out back and Old Yeller-ed. But one upcoming reboot has me rethinking my stance, to such a degree that I may even renounce my hatred of reboots, and possibly even embrace them. That reboot is The Naked Gun.
My Love of ‘The Naked Gun’ Runs Deep
Upon first hearing that The Naked Gun was being rebooted, it filled my heart with fear, which downgraded to flat-out wailing in sackcloth knowing Seth MacFarlane was involved. See, The Naked Gun, and Airplane! before it, are films that I love deeply, even deeper than my weird obsession with The Brady Bunch, but that’s a story for another time. And it wasn’t either of them that introduced me to the comedy unique to Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, aka ZAZ, but rather the TV series Police Squad!, on which The Naked Gun is based. The comedy was different, full of visual gags and wordplay that would foster into my own comic senses. I still recall specific moments from the series, like a couple going out to the Japanese garden, which is full of Japanese people in flower pots, or this exchange:
The Naked Gun sacrificed nothing in taking the world of Police Squad! to the big screen. The screen was larger, yes, but the wordplay and sight gags remained intact. More importantly, it still had Leslie Nielsen, whose career was revitalized thanks to his appearance in Airplane! as Dr. Rumack, he of the immortal “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.” Nielsen deftly played the role of Frank Drebin straight, like a “normal” police procedural, accentuating the humor by not acknowledging the absurdity of it all. And that deadpan delivery of his? Perfection, right down to the cadence. The Naked Gun has its toilet-humor moments — using the washroom with his microphone still on, for example — but for the most part, it’s a non-stop parade of sight gags, casual asides, and puns, completely devoid of any dramatic moments that would derail it.
Why ‘The Naked Gun’ 2025 Has Me Pro-Reboot
Doubling back to that initial reaction, my concern was that, in the hands of MacFarlane, the scale would be tipped more toward toilet humor and not the clever wit of the original. I feared that instead of playing the scenes straight, the reboot would play into that modern idea of winking at the audience, essentially acknowledging that there’s absurdity going on, and the characters know it just as much as we do. The first teaser trailer did little to assuage my fears. Seeing a little girl walk into a dangerous heist, only to reveal that she’s actually Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) in disguise, was funny, but the violent takedown of the robbers was inconsistent with the spirit of the original. The O.J. Simpson bit was very funny but, again, has a character break the fourth wall, acknowledging its absurdity, just as I feared. Goddamn reboots. Grr.
Then came the full theatrical trailer, and, lo and behold, I could literally feel the loathing of reboots melt away as it became clear The Naked Gun would honor the original. The same setups, the same deadpan delivery — a little Neeson-growlier, but still the same — the same devotion to the visual gags and wordplay. The scenes in the first trailer worked in the context of the larger trailer. It doesn’t fall into the trap that most reboots notoriously do, sacrificing the spirit of the original property to make the reboot “fit” today’s sensibilities. Instead, what’s old is new again, with The Naked Gun faithfully adhering to those things that made the original a success. Simple gags, like the absurdity of a hand reaching in to give Drebin a coffee… while he’s driving his car. Wordplay, evidenced by Beth (Pamela Anderson) taking a seat, literally. And Neeson is committed to playing things straight, the way that Nielsen did with such success, ignoring the folly of mispronouncing “manslaughter” as “man’s laughter.” The Naked Gun promises to be a reboot that does what a reboot should: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or, if it’s completely and utterly destroyed, do fix it — I’m talking to you, Fantastic Four: First Steps.
