How Liam Neeson defied expectation to become comedy’s saviour
After it was announced in October 2022 that the beloved spoof The Naked Gun would be getting a legacy sequel starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr, the son of Leslie Nielsen’s brilliantly clueless Frank Drebin, there was an awful lot of furious handwringing from comedy fans.
Once you sifted through all the standard, “Why doesn’t Hollywood have original ideas anymore?” and “Leslie Nielsen is The Naked Gun! You ruined my childhood!” stuff in the initial reactions, it became evident that most people’s beef with this new version was the idea of the grim-faced Neeson being its star.
In recent years, of course, Neeson has become synonymous with a certain brand of low-rent action thriller that, at best, provides a Friday night distraction from the drudgeries of modern existence, and at worst, makes you think, “Man, even my horrible life is better than this shit”. In truth, Neeson has been banging that particular drum since 2008’s Taken, but his output in the last five to ten years has truly slid further into “Why are you doing this?!” territory.
In light of this, it’s fair to say expectations were low for Neeson’s incarnation of The Naked Gun. Fittingly, when the first teaser trailer was released on April 3rd, 2025, reactions were largely negative. However, there was a groundswell of people who went on record to say the trailer did make them laugh, and that it at least captured the spirit of the original Naked Gun, no matter how many people on social media were lambasting it.
Over the next three months, a slow and steady shift in perception was evident. Advance buzz on the movie was largely positive, and the full trailer was received much more warmly than the teaser. The promotional skits released, such as Neeson’s Drebin Jr investigating sports crimes at the ESPN office, were pretty funny, as was Neeson’s PSA for people to buy tickets to The Naked Gun if they wanted to “save comedy.” After that, the first wave of reviews hit, which raved about the film, with some even claiming Neeson’s deadpan buffoonery is just what cinema needs right now.
So, how did Neeson defy such low, low expectations to emerge as a figurehead in the quest to return laughs to our cinema screens? Well, I reckon the answer lies somewhere in the nexus of a few factors: people being far too quick to judge, an apathy toward Neeson’s recent output, and a genuine, heartfelt desire for big-screen comedy to become a valuable part of the cinematic ecosystem again.
These days, the knee-jerk reaction to anything being sequelised, rebooted, or otherwise exploited for all its golden IP nuggets is frustration and cynicism. This is perfectly understandable because Hollywood has released plenty of artistically barren movies in this mould in the last several years.
However, even though it’s sometimes fun to be pessimistic about anything and everything, not every remake/reboot/IP adaptation is a terrible idea. Hell, if that were true, there’d be no feminist billion-dollar Barbie blockbuster, no Top Gun: Maverick, and no Fargo television show, because all those things would’ve been cut off at the knees before getting a chance to prove themselves.
The general disdain held toward Neeson’s movies in the last ten years can’t really be helped, as he’s brought that on himself. Having said that, I’d wager that the vast majority of people interested in The Naked Gun won’t have seen the vast majority of those films, so they’re neither here nor there when it comes to the slapstick adventures of Drebin Jr.
On top of that, the idea that people think Neeson can’t be funny is also absurd, considering he’s been funny before in Life’s Too Short, Ted 2, and The Lego Movie. It’s also been (rightly) pointed out that The Naked Gun is literally the perfect vehicle for his brand of stone-faced, ultra-serious comedy. After all, Nielsen always played The Naked Gun straight, never acknowledging that what he was saying or doing was amusing, and that was what made it funny. If anything, Neeson, producer Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), and director Akiva Schaffer (The Lonely Island) are resolutely playing to his strengths – they’re just putting all kinds of silly nonsense around him.
In my opinion, though, the biggest reason Neeson has become comedy’s most likely saviour is simple: people want comedy to return to the cinema. Less than two decades ago, big-screen comedy blockbusters brought in huge box office and made people roll in the aisles regularly. The likes of Anchorman, Dodgeball, Knocked Up, Bridesmaids, Superbad, 21 Jump Street, The Hangover, and Zoolander weren’t just consigned to straight-to-DVD/streaming territory, like most comedies are nowadays. Instead, they were events, and there’s a massive audience just waiting for a return to that kind of movie landscape.
Ultimately, Neeson has been pegged as the man to save comedy because, to put it simply, somebody’s got to do it. Two years ago, Jennifer Lawrence had the same mantle thrust upon her with the release of No Hard Feelings, and though that movie was a success, it didn’t quite open the floodgates for comedy. Now, it’s Neeson and The Naked Gun‘s turn. Let’s see if he’s got what it takes.
