Contains spoilers for “The Naked Gun” (2025)
Leave it to Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) to beat death — well, kind of. In “The Naked Gun” reboot, the late Lieutenant shows up for his son, Frank Jr. (Liam Neeson) — in the guise of an owl, just as his son requested. No really, it all makes perfect sense, trust us.
Early in the movie, Frank Jr. stops in front of a tribute to his dad and asks him for a sign that he’s doing all right as a man and as an officer of the law. He asks him to arrive in the form of an owl or a similar bird. When Frank Jr. is in a moment of crisis, an owl does indeed show up. Frank Jr. recognizes that he’s looking up at his father, incarnated in this owl. The owl acknowledges this and plucks Frank Jr. up from the ground, paragliding him across town to catch up with Richard Cane (Danny Huston), the evil but environmentally-friendly billionaire who’s planning to reshape society by causing most of the world to revert to a feral state with a soundwave creator called the PLOT device. This owlish Frank even poops in Cane’s face before settling Frank Jr. down and telling him how proud he is. Just before the post-credits scene, the owl flies before the camera, shrieking triumphantly as Frank Jr. and his true love, Beth (Pamela Anderson), finally get together. Hey, weirder things have happened before in the “Naked Gun” world.
In the world of The Naked Gun, anything is possible
While the notion of Frank Sr. coming back as an owl may feel like a strange one, “The Naked Gun” film world hasn’t exactly been known for adhering to logical rules. It’s a place where people sprout extra arms to slap each other across the face, sport tearaway suits, and can survive falling from great heights. While the universe has never included semi-anthropomorphic animals or reincarnation before, it’s not a shocking notion to introduce such elements into this world.
On top of that, it’s not a surprising choice for this version of “The Naked Gun” either, as the movie indulges in a musical montage in which Beth and Frank Jr. take a mountainside vacation and create a living snowman through an occult ritual who resents being used as a threesome partner by the couple and then thrown away — all to the tune of Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Never let it be said these films don’t know how to be creative.