Okay, so something happens in the first few minutes of Police Academy 5 that must surely be the most meaningful and artistic bit of creative story-telling that has happened before or since in the entire series. As Captain Harris and Proctor are breaking into Chief Hurst's office to get their hands on his files, Proctor worries that they're breaking the law. "We're not breaking the law, Proctor," Harris assures him. "We are STRETCHING it." After he says this we cut to Proctor, who pulls on a piece of bubble gum between his fingers which stretches
and then breaks. In a rare moment of thoughtfulness, Proctor appeared to me to look at the gum and discover the stretching and breaking are pretty much the same thing.
At any rate, it's telling that such a simple thing should come across as one of the most creatively meaningful things in the series, but I do have to say that Police Academy 5 is not nearly as bad as I have read that it is. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's one of the better sequels in the whole bonehead franchise.
In his search, Harris has discovered that Lassard has reached the state's mandatory retirement age and thus sets about on a mission to force him into retirement so that he can take over the job himself. The only problem, of course, is that Harris still doesn't command a scrap of respect from anyone in sight, while Lassard lovingly oversees his academy like a clueless grandfather. You see, he is so good at obtaining the respect of his men through the timely feeding of his ever-present goldfish that he has earned himself the coveted "Police Officer of the Decade" award (normally I would think that such an award would go to an actual police officer, but that's just me).
So a ceremony is scheduled to be held in his honor in beautiful Miama Beach, so the whole Police Academy Crew packs up and heads on down to the sunny south for the festivities. Harris, of course, employs Proctor's considerable wisdom and skill to book them two first class tickets to Miami, and the two end up traveling on a rickety plane full of farm animals with loose bowels.
The crime this time is a group of astonishingly stupid diamond thieves, who manage to pull off a brilliant diamond heist and get away without a trace, but can't make it through an airport without tripping all over themselves and accidentally swapping their diamond-laden bag with Lassard's goldfish-laden bag. You have your small-time crime boss with the slicked back hair and quick tongue, and his two meathead sidekicks who hop along behind him going "whatever you say boss" and "boss are you okay boss?" If only they had taken these bumbling morons down a notch or two, they could easily have been the funniest thing in the whole movie. The rest of the movie follows the diamond thieves as they try to get their diamonds back before the real crime boss kills them all, and before Lassard figures out that that video camera that he's using isn't a present from the guys but the hiding spot for the stolen diamonds.
As you know, this is the first Police Academy movie that's missing Steve Guttenberg as Mahoney, and he's replaced by the charming Matt McCoy, who plays Commandant Lassard's nephew Nick, an ace Sergeant on the Miami Beach force. The character is a noble effort, but Mahoney is definitely missed.
I must have watched this one the most when I was a kid because I remember it more than any of the others in the series, and I watched them all over the last couple weeks. I particularly remember the scene when Tackleberry fires off the assault weapons in shooting practice and then when they try to take the guns back he says, "NO!! I NEED these!!" Classic! This particular installment in the series is famously bad, but anyone who tells you it's not any fun definitely needs to lighten up a little bit.
The plot culminates in an exciting sequence when the little crime boss gives in to the frustrations of multiple failed attempts to get their bag back and just decides to kidnap Lassard in front of the whole congregation. Lassard of course, true to form, thinks it's all a demonstration and even helps the bad guys out along the way, winning their friendship and respect in probably the funniest element of the whole movie.
Of course the fourth sequel in the Police Academy franchise is not a good movie, but it was never made with any Academy Awards in mind. In fact, since there are no wet t-shirt moments like in part 4 (actually I was a little disappointed by this), you might even say it's a kid's movie, since it's the kids who are going to enjoy it the most, except for those of us who haven't seen it since we loved it as kids ourselves.
By the way, if you manage to get it on DVD, make sure to check out the little ten minute documentary about it, it's hilarious! I loved the ones about the earlier films, where they get most of the original cast together to talk about their experiences in making the movies. My favorite is Mission to Moscow, where producer Paul Maslansky talks about what a great film-making event it was making Police Academy 7, finally and officially revealing himself to be genuinely delusional.
But this one comes close! Here's an actual quote from director Alan Myerson speaking about part 5 – "For it's day, it was just short of a James Bond movie."
Uh-huh.
Note - at one point, one of the bad guys calls Harris "sharkbait." If they had copyrighted that, think of the killing they could have made off of Finding Nemo!
At any rate, it's telling that such a simple thing should come across as one of the most creatively meaningful things in the series, but I do have to say that Police Academy 5 is not nearly as bad as I have read that it is. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's one of the better sequels in the whole bonehead franchise.
In his search, Harris has discovered that Lassard has reached the state's mandatory retirement age and thus sets about on a mission to force him into retirement so that he can take over the job himself. The only problem, of course, is that Harris still doesn't command a scrap of respect from anyone in sight, while Lassard lovingly oversees his academy like a clueless grandfather. You see, he is so good at obtaining the respect of his men through the timely feeding of his ever-present goldfish that he has earned himself the coveted "Police Officer of the Decade" award (normally I would think that such an award would go to an actual police officer, but that's just me).
So a ceremony is scheduled to be held in his honor in beautiful Miama Beach, so the whole Police Academy Crew packs up and heads on down to the sunny south for the festivities. Harris, of course, employs Proctor's considerable wisdom and skill to book them two first class tickets to Miami, and the two end up traveling on a rickety plane full of farm animals with loose bowels.
The crime this time is a group of astonishingly stupid diamond thieves, who manage to pull off a brilliant diamond heist and get away without a trace, but can't make it through an airport without tripping all over themselves and accidentally swapping their diamond-laden bag with Lassard's goldfish-laden bag. You have your small-time crime boss with the slicked back hair and quick tongue, and his two meathead sidekicks who hop along behind him going "whatever you say boss" and "boss are you okay boss?" If only they had taken these bumbling morons down a notch or two, they could easily have been the funniest thing in the whole movie. The rest of the movie follows the diamond thieves as they try to get their diamonds back before the real crime boss kills them all, and before Lassard figures out that that video camera that he's using isn't a present from the guys but the hiding spot for the stolen diamonds.
As you know, this is the first Police Academy movie that's missing Steve Guttenberg as Mahoney, and he's replaced by the charming Matt McCoy, who plays Commandant Lassard's nephew Nick, an ace Sergeant on the Miami Beach force. The character is a noble effort, but Mahoney is definitely missed.
I must have watched this one the most when I was a kid because I remember it more than any of the others in the series, and I watched them all over the last couple weeks. I particularly remember the scene when Tackleberry fires off the assault weapons in shooting practice and then when they try to take the guns back he says, "NO!! I NEED these!!" Classic! This particular installment in the series is famously bad, but anyone who tells you it's not any fun definitely needs to lighten up a little bit.
The plot culminates in an exciting sequence when the little crime boss gives in to the frustrations of multiple failed attempts to get their bag back and just decides to kidnap Lassard in front of the whole congregation. Lassard of course, true to form, thinks it's all a demonstration and even helps the bad guys out along the way, winning their friendship and respect in probably the funniest element of the whole movie.
Of course the fourth sequel in the Police Academy franchise is not a good movie, but it was never made with any Academy Awards in mind. In fact, since there are no wet t-shirt moments like in part 4 (actually I was a little disappointed by this), you might even say it's a kid's movie, since it's the kids who are going to enjoy it the most, except for those of us who haven't seen it since we loved it as kids ourselves.
By the way, if you manage to get it on DVD, make sure to check out the little ten minute documentary about it, it's hilarious! I loved the ones about the earlier films, where they get most of the original cast together to talk about their experiences in making the movies. My favorite is Mission to Moscow, where producer Paul Maslansky talks about what a great film-making event it was making Police Academy 7, finally and officially revealing himself to be genuinely delusional.
But this one comes close! Here's an actual quote from director Alan Myerson speaking about part 5 – "For it's day, it was just short of a James Bond movie."
Uh-huh.
Note - at one point, one of the bad guys calls Harris "sharkbait." If they had copyrighted that, think of the killing they could have made off of Finding Nemo!