It was on this day, six years ago!
Here are some film reviews based on that experience. I've assumed you're familiar with the basic premise and characters.
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| My face after watching the seven Police Academy films in one sitting |
Police Academy - ***1/2
This one is actually really funny and holds up well. I almost went higher on the rating.
Lassard giving the presentation while the hooker is hiding in the podium is classic. Then they call it back at the end! Champagne comedy.
The best line is the never-to-appear-again George Martin to the never-to-appear-again Eugene Barbara - "To me, marriage is a sacred institution. So... do you and your wife do it doggie style or what?".
The worst line is when Hooks gets called a jigaboo - important to the plot but really awkward 30+ years on.
I'd also forgotten it was R-rated and there's some unexpected nudity. I'm pretty sure that did not make the TV edits from my childhood.
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment - ***
Not quite as good as the first, but has more of the classic characters. There is the introduction of Zed as the gang leader and Sweetchuck as his victim. They also bring in Mauser as the snivelling cop looking to undermine Lassard, with Proctor as his idiot sidekick.
Only ones missing really are Harris and Callahan, which actually is strong continuity because they were Academy trainers and not on the force in the first movie. Appreciate that as things stop making sense pretty soon.
Police Academy 3: Back in Training - ***
This one is minus any plot, but plus all the characters being in awesome form as they've really found which characters work - such as Jones and Tackleberry, and the Zed/Sweetchuck dynamic. They just let them run amuck with Mahoney.
It only gets to movie length by rehashing heaps of jokes from the first two, but because of the characters it works.
There are two academies, one run by Lassard and one by Mauser, and of course one must shut. Competition ensues! Mauser at his manipulative and sinister best! There is a riot in the city and the new recruits and the old recruits training them save the day.
Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol - **1/2
My favourite as a kid, but on refleciton this is where things start going really downhill. Not that there was much plot and subtlety before, but now they don't even try.
For example, instead of something simple, realistic and funny like Mahoney putting shoe polish on the end of Harris's megaphone as in the original, you get the gang comandeering a giant crane (!) to winch the portaloo Proctor is using (!) into a neighbouring stadium (!) where the sides drop (!) while the national anthem is playing at a game (!) so Proctor stands up wearing no pants (!!!).
It's a little contrived.
Plus while Harris was good in the first one as the straight cop who can't stand these misfits, here he replaces Mauser as Mauser-lite and it doesn't work as well.
Then we have House. I figure they just thought, "well a tall black guy is hilarious, so let's get a fat black guy too!". He's not funny.
Mahoney is hardly in it as it's obvious he's not coming back and the final chase scene is ridiculous. And yet... I still enjoyed it.
Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach - **
There is a significant quality dropoff again here.
Lassard is getting an award in Miami and brings his recruits along. Harris and Proctor come too, for reasons I don't understand. There is a bag swap with some diamond thieves, a kidnapping, another ridiculous chase, and the good guys win.
Mahoney is replaced by Lassard's nephew Nick who other than being Lloyd Braun off Seinfeld doesn't have much going for him.
Still some laughs but it's now definitely just a series of gags rather than a coherent movie.
Police Academy 6: City Under Seige - **
I hadn't seen this one before so maybe I'm overrating it because by this point I was pretty drunk.
What didn't work here was Nick Lassard not being funny at all - I don't watch Police Academy films to see serious police work trying to solve a Scooby Doo mystery. They also didn't bother explaining how he transferred from Miami and intimately knew the city, but by this point plot holes you can drive a bus through don't matter.
It did have lots of cheap laughs with Hightower, Jones and Tack and that was good enough for me at that point.
Police Academy: Mission to Moscow - 1/2*
After pumping out six movies in six years, they decide another is in order five years on.
So I've come this far, I've enjoyed the previous six to varying degrees, I'm quite drunk, how bad can this be?
Answer - fucking terrible.
Perhaps the worst movie I've ever finished. None of it makes sense. None of it is funny. It's hard even to identify which parts the writers were intending to be funny... there's one bit, where the now apparently senile but still-in-charge Lassard is with this Russian family he spends the entire movie with, and he catches and spits an egg in his mouth. This might have been an attempt at humour but I just don't know.
Some Jones sound effects might have saved it, but of the five characters left he's in it the least.
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