The summer movie season is in full swing. Alongside blockbusters featuring dinosaurs and superheroes, audiences are now getting a fresh take on a comedy classic: The Naked Gun.
Paramount Pictures has released the first full-length trailer for the reboot of the beloved franchise. This new version stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., taking over from the late Leslie Nielsen, who originally portrayed the bumbling detective. The film is directed by Akiva Schaffer of The Lonely Island and produced by Seth MacFarlane.
Earlier this year, a teaser trailer introduced audiences to Neeson’s Drebin. While the teaser included a clever meta joke about O.J. Simpson—who appeared in the original films—some viewers felt the overall tone was inconsistent. One scene showing Drebin dressed as a schoolgirl and attacking bank robbers seemed unusually violent and off-brand for the series.
However, the full trailer delivers more of the goofy, absurd humor fans expect from The Naked Gun franchise.
In one early scene, Neeson’s character is driving when a hand suddenly appears through the car window to offer him a cup of coffee. The moment recalls classic visual gags from Airplane!, another film by the original creators, Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, that poked fun at movie clichés.
Another moment features Drebin meeting his love interest, played by Pamela Anderson. When he tells her to “take a chair,” she literally picks up a seat and drags it down the hallway—a callback to the franchise’s signature wordplay and literal humor, similar to the old “Cigarette?” “Yes, I know” gag from Police Squad!.
One of the standout jokes comes when Drebin interrogates a suspect, played by Busta Rhymes. Drebin notes the suspect served “20 years for man’s laughter.” The man corrects him: “manslaughter.” Drebin responds, “Must have been quite the joke.”
The trailer also reveals that the fictional Police Squad is shut down. As the officers leave the building, it is already being converted into a Spirit Halloween store—a modern reference that still fits the franchise’s love of absurd background details.
In addition to the trailer, Paramount also released a new poster featuring Neeson and Anderson surrounded by an odd number of extra hands—a visual joke in line with the franchise’s history of strange, unexplained gags.
The trailer concludes with Drebin driving his electric car into a jailhouse wall. Oblivious to the damage he caused, he remarks, “This place is falling apart.” Fans of the original films will recognize this as a nod to Drebin’s notoriously bad driving, a recurring joke throughout the earlier movies.
With its mix of visual gags, wordplay, and surreal humor, the reboot seems to be capturing the spirit of the original Naked Gun series. While the teaser raised concerns, this new look suggests that fans might be in for a return to form.
