Movie Info
Movie Name: Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
Studio: The Ladd Company
Genre(s): Comedy
Release Date(s): March 29, 1985
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Zed….the only good thing
Crime is on the rise, and Captain Pete Lassard (Howard Hesseman) finds his job is in trouble if he can’t stop it. Contacting his brother Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) at the police academy, Pete is about to get a whole new round of recruits to help him…or destroy him. Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg), Jones (Michael Winslow), Hooks (Marion Ramsey), Tackleberry (David Graf), Fackler (Bruce Mahler) and Hightower (Bubba Smith) have been assigned to the worst district and cleaning it up will mean bringing down Zed McGlunk (Bobcat Goldthwait) and his gang! Unfortunately, Lassard doesn’t just have gangs to deal with Zed because Mauser (Art Metrano) is gunning for his job.
Directed by Jerry Paris, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment was the follow-up to the popular 1984 comedy Police Academy. The movie dropped its R Rating for a PG-13 Rating and became a massive hit despite the poor reviews.
Ha-ha! Mahoney’s superglue trick permanently blinded Mauser and crippled him…but it was a good laugh
I remember loving Police Academy despite it being too old for me. It was dirty and dangerous (lots of swearing and nudity). I can remember seeing Police Academy 2 and thinking “where are all the fun people from the first film?”
It isn’t as if Police Academy was a fine film of the cinema…it was pretty base in its laughs. Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment loses the edge of the first film by losing the dirty jokes and adds a generic, bland story to keep it going. With little laughs, Police Academy 2 really serves no purpose.
The movie was hurt by the loss of cast members. The first cast had a real good chemistry and the movie picked over that cast for the standouts. It was obvious that Guttenberg would return as Mahoney, but the decision to have G.W. Bailey replaced with Art Metrano as his foil was a mistake. The addition of Bobcat Goldthwait does add some life to the limp script and his torture of Tim Kazurinsky as “Sweetchuck” led to the addition of both characters for sequels.
Yes!!! Non-PC Asian Stereotypes!!! (sarcasm)
Much of the comedy that works is the physical jokes that they play on the characters. Even recurring jokes like the Blue Oyster gets better laughs than many of the standard jokes. It is fortunate that some of these jokes get laughs because the “action” of the film is pretty weak and anticlimactic.
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment was rather dull comedy sequel to a fun film. The movie faced problems with the cast during production and was generally reported as being a miserable experience all around. The franchise realized some of their mistakes for its sequels and fixed some of them for the sequel. Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment was followed by Police Academy 3: Back in Training in 1986.
Related Links:
Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)
Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)
Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988)
