It’s been years since Hollywood served us a proper comedy — the kind where you laugh so hard you briefly forget your own name, your troubles, and occasionally, your ability to breathe. Somewhere along the way, the industry decided that “funny” was something to be sprinkled lightly over a superhero script, like parmesan on a sad bowl of pasta, or wedged awkwardly between explosions in a Netflix action series destined to be forgotten by next Tuesday.

And yet, like a banana skin placed perfectly in the path of a dignitary, the unexpected happened: Liam Neeson — yes, Mr. I have a very particular set of skills — wandered into a reboot of The Naked Gun… and it worked. Not just “good enough” worked, but actually, really funny worked. Even Pamela Anderson pulled her weight in the joke department.

For those raised on Leslie Nielsen’s holy trinity of deadpan brilliance, the thought of anyone stepping into Frank Drebin’s (Jr’s) shoes felt like sacrilege of the highest cinematic order. Those films were slapstick poetry: gags stacked higher than a Jenga tower at a caffeine-fuelled family reunion, a visual buffet of nonsense where background jokes were often funnier than the main plot. But Neeson’s turn somehow managed the impossible — paying homage without embalming the thing in nostalgia syrup, while smuggling in fresh gags that didn’t make us wince. I left the movie thinking… what an absolutely inspired choice.

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Why the Long Drought?

Why has Hollywood gone through a two-decade-long comedy dry spell, offering up “quirky dramedies” when what we really wanted was a pratfall into a cake? Maybe it’s because comedy, more than any other genre, ages like milk in Frank’s fridge — one whiff and it’s over. What’s hilarious one decade can be cancelled the next. Maybe it’s because “funny” doesn’t test as well with international audiences as “explosions” do. Or perhaps Hollywood simply forgot that the point of a comedy is to make you laugh until your face hurts, not to sneak in a moral about nurturing your inner child while being chased by CGI raccoons with suspiciously realistic dental work.

It could also be the fear factor. In the current climate, comedy writers navigate a minefield where every joke risks becoming a social media trial by fire. Slapstick, thankfully, is largely immune — it’s hard to take offence at someone being hit with a custard pie, unless you are, in fact, the custard pie.

A Sign of Hope

Whatever the reason, I’d like to think this new Naked Gun is a good omen. If Neeson — a man whose cinematic emotional range usually runs from “intense glare” to “even more intense glare” — can successfully anchor a slapstick farce, then surely there’s hope for more full-throttle comedies. Ones where the jokes come fast enough to cause mild whiplash, where scripts exist solely as delivery systems for absurd sight gags, and where nobody tries to teach you anything except that banana peels are still funny.

Frankly, I can’t wait until it hits streaming so I can watch it again. Until then, I’ll be rewatching the originals, chuckling at background gags I somehow missed the first fifty-hundred times, and keeping an eye on any other serious actors plotting a slapstick heist. Daniel Day-Lewis in Airplane 3? Dame Judi Dench in Hot Shots: Part Trois? Hollywood, the runway is clear — bring back the belly laughs.

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AJ Wright

AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.

As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.

AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.

For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in.  Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.

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