Ah, this Police Academy franchise is one thrilling toboggan ride! Each new sequel compounds the errors of what came before, and it was never all that good to begin with. Already Police Academy 2 lost the salving raunch which formed Police Academy’s backbone, replacing it with a silly, sloppy and unfocused form of juvenile cartoon humor. Police Academy 3: Back in Training takes that sloppiness as a challenge, a challenge to create a sequel with even less evident drive. And again, story was never one of Police Academy’s strong suits anyway.
Let’s see, these things already have unwieldy casts of C-list semi-comedians, whose under-developed, one-dimensional schtick barely has room to breathe as it is. Their characters’ are tired, nonetheless. This slow draining of jokes is endemic to comedy franchises. To “resolve” that in Back in Training, returning director Jerry Paris rather increases his cast, spreading out screen time even thinner, even as the point behind these movies grows invisible.
Initially these Police Academies started out as dutiful, if rather minor, “slobs vs. snobs” comedies. They have rather moved beyond that form – and not for the better. It’s a subtle distinction, but Back in Training instead belongs to a related but dissimilar ‘80s comic trend: the camp movie. This different form ushers back to Meatballs, which is itself an early “slobs vs. snobs.” Is this getting confusing? The difference is one of story. Basically, you’ve got two camps, the ragtag camp of lovable goofballs, and the militaristic camp of privileged trust funders. Conflicts arise, and the impoverished loser camp must defeat their rivals once and for all, at the cost of their very existence. Populating the form, you have the campers, the counselors, and the camp owners, each distinct as a group. Also, for no good reason, a boxing match occurs at some point. See the Meatballs sequels for prime examples.
“But wait,” you say, “no Police Academy takes place at a camp!” Correct, it takes place at a Police Academy. But simply replace “camps” with “academies,” “campers” with “cadets,” and “counselors” with “training staff,” and you’ve got Back in Training, one way or another.
How did this come about? Suddenly, in between movies (so presumably over one year), Their First Assignment’s antagonistic Captain Mauser (Art Metrano) has taken charge of a second Police Academy in Anonymous American Non-Toronto City. Why in God’s great teats does this town need two?! Actually, it doesn’t, and again its never-seen plot-enabling female mayor has jumpstarted an entry, by announcing one of the two academies shall close down. That’s as much plot justification as we’re getting, as it’s an arbitrary way to reamass as many recurring characters as possible, and replay the Part One story with worse jokes. To this end, Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes), of the good Academy, assembles the franchise’s core of six officers…as instructors!
Okay, like the movies themselves, I have little interest in these people, and shall grant them less attention than ever:
Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg)
Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow)
Moses Hightower (Bubba Smith)
Eugene Tackleberry (David Graf)
Laverne Hooks (Marion Ramsey)
Douglas Fackler (Bruce Mahler)
Also officially (re)joining this posse is a returning member from Part One, who sat out Part Two: Debbie Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook), who previously combined militaristic discipline and the sort of sexual domination one normally finds in German women. And that was a tit-happy, filthy, filthy picture. Back in Training is rated god damn PG now, and what other franchise has descended so far from R in three entries?! Thus, Callahan has little purpose, but seeing as the others I’ve mention don’t either, she’s in good company.
You’ll notice, with your no-doubt encyclopedic Police Academy knowledge, that Lassard and Mauser are also returning characters. Hell, even over in Mauser’s camp we see several familiar, despicable faces, as he amasses every dumb henchman figure from the two prior films to serve as his lackeys. So doing the Departed thing and working as Mauser’s moles in Lassard’s academy are Proctor, Copeland and Blankes, together again for the first time (indistinguishable bland boys Lance Kinsey, Brant Von Hoffman, Scott Thomson). And with an increased devotion to stupid, desperate, flailing comedy-by-means-of-shittiness, even these fellows, once ostensible straight men, are prone to the sort of idiotical moronicalness once limited to our heroes. Honestly, the entire Police Academy universe is a realm of buffoons and low IQs. Comedy-wise, it’s a shame, since black never shows up against black.
With a majority of actors culled together from the two prior Academies, even when some were sequel replacements for others , even now there’s not enough characters for Back in Training. That’s partly because of an approach to jokes and storytelling which I’ll address down the way. Rounding out even more spaces are the new recruits, serving roles once occupied by Mahoney and his crew. (Besides, competence has begrudgingly found the central characters some three movies in, which rather kills the central conceit that they are screwy.)
So, time for more bolding, as we meet more comic grostesques:
Fackler’s unnamed wife (Debralee Scott): If Back in Training has a single thought within its vacant blue cap, it’s the idea of “reversal.” So with the former cadets now instructors, we run through a wonderfully familiar (not in a good way) opening scene, as new cadets rush to the Academy. Among them is Fackler’s unnamed wife, because trust me when I say that every single minor character in all of these movies has suddenly taken on a bizarre obsession with becoming a police officer. Like Fackler, his identity-challenged wife has her big opening scene, then never does anything worthwhile ever again.
Zed (Bobcat Goldthwait): See, I wasn’t kidding when I said “EVERYONE!!!,” like Gary Oldman did in Léon. The villain of Part Two, Zed (unlike in Pulp Fiction, Zed ain’t dead), is now becoming a cop – for no reason! Oh goodie! You mean we get to endure a more concentrated dosage of Goldthwait’s ear-raping monstrosities? Jeepers, he makes all these other characters seem like rounded individuals. He’s something of the Animal of the troupe, in the “Muppet Show” sense, except Zed’s the total opposite of Animal in that he is negative comedy. And I mean that even in this franchise.
Sweetchuck (Tim Kazurinsky): I didn’t mention Sweetchuck when discussing Their First Assignment. Basically put, he was an exaggerated nebbish clerk who was oft the butt of Zed’s directionless violence. Something veeery similar happens here, because Police Academy subscribes to the notion of sequels as photocopies. Also, if there’s even the slightest chance some jokes can be born of a different sub-“Simpsonian” caricature, you’d better bet that caricature’s gonna show up. No clever jokes show up, but still…
Bud Kirkland (Andrew Paris): Another unrequested returner from Their First Assignment, and this guy was even more useless there. He was in one scene, one pointless, pointless late-stage scene about boxing, which had nothing to do with any of the characters or plot threads or even policing or ANYTHING. Okay, I’m badmouthing Part Two when I should be badmouthing Part Three. Kirkland reappears, because every small character does (though the major roles, such as his sister Kelly, do not return – because the larger actors had the chance to reject a Police Academy movie). I also suspect, now that I consider the actor’s name for the first time, that he’s director Paris’ son.
Oh, too bad Kirkland doesn’t even have a personality to glom jokes onto.
And here we go, with even more cadets (yeah, these Police Academy write-ups are just gonna be cast lists, for want of anything else to respond to):
Tomoko Nogata (Brian Tochi): I’ll admit, the Police Academies haven’t gone in for ethnic stereotyping as often as I’d expected them to, so I’ll grant them an excuse to mock the Japanese three movies in. They do not disappoint, proving just why they should normally avoid such characterization. For while there is some Japan-centric “komedy” to Nogata, they soon start adding Indian traits, ‘cause Asian is Asian, never mind the 4,000 mile difference. (Notably, Tochi is one of the few actors I recognize – by name – without prompting. He voiced Leo in the first three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies!!!...!!!)
Karen Adams (Shawn Weatherly): This “actress” was Miss Universe in 1980. That means she gets the standard “attractive woman without jokes or a personality or any real scenes who engages one of the male regulars in a brief and underwhelming romantic subplot” role. That gig goes to Guttenberg (er, Mahoney), ‘cause he romanced Cattrall last time he was at the Academy.
There are also a few other cadets (extras), to give the impression of quantity.
…And just when did these people, who were all rookies last year, become qualified to train cadets?! These movies are asinine!
…Well, that’s about it for the pile of ciphers they’ll be fashioning gags around. And by “fashioning gags,” I mean just that. There is a phenomenal lack of through lines in Back in Training. The newly desperate style of comedy showcases just how these sequels’ badness compounds. The writer (this time Gene Quintano, most famous for – Oh God! – Loaded Weapon 1) cannot even construct set pieces. Instead, scenes last for all of 10 to 30 seconds, setting up a single bad gag, delivering it, then moving on. This must’ve been a cinch to edit, as no scene has any pertinence to anything else! And after a while, they even start to forget which characters are cadets, and which instructors, as they just appear based off of which horrid personality is the best delivery system for the next squalid joke.
And even with this scattershot, herky-jerky and random approach, it’s amazing how successfully you’ll predict the gags ahead of time (that is, assuming you don’t accidentally anticipate a better joke, which is entirely possible, or your brain shuts down in voluntary suicide). It makes that five minutes’ worth of “hairy palms eventually lead to a half-assed masturbation reference” in Part Two seem like Howards Hawks in comparison.
Oh, and the “parallel” for that bit in this one? Mauser loses his eyebrows (see above, for an example of what this movie considers a witty visual joke). Wow, in three movies we’ve gone from “podium blowjob” to “white man with cholla eyebrows,” and I can directly chart the devolution!
Jerry Paris’ direction is notably worse than it was in Part Two, and there is a bit of tragedy to that fact. For all of Paris’ uninspired proscenium, TV-based visuals, there is a chaos to the proceedings, when something this ungrounded needs a deft hand. Forsooth, Paris directs like a man slowly dying from brain cancer, because he was. In fact, Paris perished early in 1986, long before his swan song, Police Academy 3: Back in Training hit theaters. At least, the internet claims Paris died of cancer. I imagine instead it was a way to escape some lifelong contract forever wedding him to this series.
So, as a “camp” comedy (if you buy my argument made eons ago), Back in Training follows a familiar trajectory. For most of the film, the “good” Academy lags behind in impressing the committee, who must decide which Academy shall remain for the coming years (and four more sequels). We needn’t worry, because these sorts of things are always decided solely upon a final crazy day. Making the preceding purposeless, even for a Police Academy. Naturally, the good guys shall win. It’s the circumstances of this inevitable victory which really astound, and plummet Back in Training past the point of no return.
Basically, the Academies’ final test is happening at the big yacht regatta and –
Wait, seriously?! They actually invoke yacht regattas full of hoi polloi upperclassmen in real ‘80s comedies?! I mean, okay, Caddyshack did so, but it established this cliché. (“Futurama” ended it, in “Mars University.”) Back in Training unabashedly declares that the governor and all his fellow stuffed suits are dining most elegantly right by the water’s edge, just waiting to fall in.
If it’s at all possible to appreciate a comedy ironically, as unintentionally funny even when it is unintentionally not intentionally funny, then I suddenly like this movie…for entirely wrong reasons.
And still, the climactic events must be a complete non sequitur. That’s a Police Academy special, as there’s always just some random violent gunman at the end. And like a proto Die Hard (yeah right!), the yacht regatta has just been taken hostage by an elite team of international terrorists!...No, I am not making any of this up.
It’s time for the majority of the bolded characters to join together, be they cadet or instructor (as stated, the movie no longer distinguishes), and save the day! This they do – upon jet skis! To the accompaniment of a glorious, semi-tropical synthesizer beat. Wow…a Police Academy synth jet ski chase, with immaculate shades of Jaws 3-D tossed in? This is the single most ‘80s thing I have ever seen! (And it only slightly disgusts me that this is the germ for Meatballs 4.)
The jet ski routine goes on forever, totally in opposition to Back in Training’s usual habit of sub-minute long gag scenes. The entire sequence is so distinct, it’s totally likely Paris was dead at this point – at any rate, it’s mostly second unit. That means the bad jokes dry up, allowing one to rather marvel slack-jawed at the good-bad train wreck that is ten minutes of Steve Guttenberg rescuing the governor of America’s Toronto from a baby mask-wearing mercenary. No sane collection of words can approach what goes on here. I think the series just peaked!
With such an ending, I surely don’t know what to expect of further Police Academies…More random non-jokes, or scenes of all-out ridiculous? I hope for the latter, but something niggling tells me it’s not to be.
Really, the series boasts a remarkably steady devolution so far, in terms of quality and success. I expect that, at least, to continue. Whatever does work in Back in Training, that’ll be gone for Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol. And the box office shall diminish progressively too. It’s the perfect sequel series! Part Two did 75% of Part One’s take; Part Three does likewise for Part Two – down to $43 million, and merely the U.S.’s 17th most popular film of the year. Will there be a cap to this? Will the Police Academies fade monetarily and artistically into absolute mathematical nothingness? Will Michael Winslow, uncommented upon today, continue to be the lone saving grace of the franchise? Come back next time, if you dare!
RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Police Academy (1984)
• No. 2 Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)
• No. 4 Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)
• No. 5 Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988)
• No. 6 Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)
• No. 7 Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)
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