Franchises, looked at as a whole, are an interesting field when it comes to auteur theory. Within a single film, it is often easy enough to credit, say, the director with authorial intent. With countless semi-connected films, as directors come and go, and cast with them, certain lucky franchises see instead their producers become the authors. The James Bond series is a prime example of this. For Police Academy, the undoubted voice, the lone creative figurehead who remains consistent throughout, is producer Paul Maslansky. Indeed, Maslansky had discovered his golden goose in these turkeys, and was intent to milk the bird dry for all its eggs (or whatever), a new sequel released every single year to diminishing returns. Hell, I really doubt anyone else was clamoring for more, other than Steve Guttenberg’s long-suffering agent.
Nonetheless, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol actually curtails the series’ steady downward qualitative slide. It makes no greater mistakes than Police Academy 3: Back in Training; hell, it might even be better than that one. Though otherwise it’s the exact same movie. And Police Academy 3 was the exact same movie as Police Academy, with Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment being the lone outlying example of an entry which doesn’t take place at the titular Police Academy.
Ways in which Police Academy 4 outshines Police Academy 3…It is not as wholly random, as it has the patience to fashion scenes in excess of 30 seconds. Hell, all the gym jokes, for instance, occur in a single block of screen time, rather than getting edited arbitrarily throughout the entire 90 minutes. This helps to make 4 seem, ever so slightly, like an actual movie, with actual characters and an actual story to tell.
It isn’t. The specific sin Police Academy 4 makes (apart from just being a Police Academy movie) is the sin of sequel stagnation. The jokes, characters and premise are slightly rejiggered from before, but only ever so slightly. For example, the joke where an unsuspecting villain is misdirected to the gay Blue Oyster Bar (which occurs in Parts One – Four) happens again here. It exists in no greater context. For well over a minute, the exact same progression of events – officer enters bar, traps self in, realizes where he is, is forced to dance with a leather bear – plays out, relying that we recall it from before, and that we somehow find it amusing again.
The entirety of Citizens on Patrol suffers from this unwillingness to even tinker. This includes the premise, which sees academy commandant Lassard (George Gaynes yet again, now without any of the dignity he once started with) creating a knockoff Neighborhood Watch program: “Citizens on Patrol,” aka C.O.P., which is actually the cleverest notion in the entry. Basically, he intends to train citizens in police ways. So the gist is, AGAIN Officers Mahoney et al (Steve Guttenberg, et al) train a new batch of recruits, same as 3, same as they were trained in 1.
Again this effort is opposed by a stick-in-the-ass evil cop, who tries (and fails) to stop Lassard’s dreams. Substituting for Mauser, who fulfilled this role in 2 and 3, is Thaddeus Harris (G. W. Bailey), who played the part in 1. Why the change? Surely they don’t intend a shakeup. Instead, Mauser’s Art Metrano fell off a ladder and severely injured himself in between entries – this was a major enough event in Metrano’s life that to this day he campaigns against combining ladders and Jews. Or much like the death of director Jerry Paris, perhaps this was just Metrano’s attempt to wrest himself away from the sinking Police Academy franchise. Either is likely.
The result, for viewers, is simply that things are a little different, technically, but to no greater end. In fact, the only real change offered by Citizens on Patrol is a little careful fine-tuning of the cast. So not only do over a dozen familiar faces return from before, but they are repositioned ever so minorly, like a chess grand master performing his lifetime’s greatest game. It’s as though Maslansky is attempting to create the perfect idiot comedy cast, and he’ll keep making these things until it’s done.
With this cast reworking, cadets from last time are instructors this time, because wedging “cherished” characters back into the same predicament takes precedence over any sensible, real world plotting. As before, new characters appear as the trainees, the would-be members of C.O.P. But with each new entry, the cast roster grows immeasurably vast, meaning that these newbies get perhaps a few minutes total per person to make an impression – and that’s for the movie as a whole! It’s so unmanageable now, it’s simply a struggle for new director Jim Drake to keep everything straight.
(Drake is as much like his predecessor, Paris, as the rest of Citizens on Patrol is. He too is a charisma-free television journeyman, who knows the precise underwhelming approach to the material. He differs from Paris only in that he is not actively dying, which is probably the one reason why Citizens on Patrol is better than Back in Training…though that stagnation does its share to make that improvement infinitesimal at best.)
Anyway, let’s do as always, and recollect the characters, and what they bring to the table (if anything):
POLICE OFFICERS
Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg): Guttenberg persists in parading out his bad Bill Murray impression. His character also persists, time and again, in causing pranks through A) the use of glue, and B) replacing personal hygiene products with deadly substances. This is meant to be “cheeky,” and “all in good fun,” but Mahoney’s antics literally put people in the emergency room, which makes it seem less “jocular” and more “police officer committing serial assault crimes.” There’s nothing new here, so it’s only with time that Mahoney starts to seem like a true psychopath.
Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow): Winslow I’ve long called the lone MVP of the series, whose isolated noise-making routines were funny in spite of everything else. Sadly (and this is 4’s greatest damnation), Winslow ceases to be funny here. Why?! I mean, he’s not doing things any worse than before! That’s exactly it. Winslow’s Bruce Lee pastiche, complete with bad dubbing lips and all, was clever and well-acted before. I’ve seen it thrice already; chalk up another two or so performances in 4, and it’s a case of “enough is enough.” Shame too, really, as now the Police Academies have only “observed car crash” value.
Moses Hightower (Bubba Smith): I don’t even recall them doing anything with him this time.
Eugene Tackleberry (David Graf): Militaristic guy. No more jokes for him exist, especially since the writers keep on gifting his personality tics to new characters.
Laverne Hooks (Marion Ramsey): For the first time in four movies, they fashion an actual, legitimate joke about her one trait: a meek voice. It isn’t a good joke. I don’t know why she’s been kept around this whole time.
Douglas Fackler is at last gone, because he never served any purpose. See, minor rejiggering? Volumes more are said with this omission than with any of the countless clonk-to-the-head jokes which pepper the film.
Replacing Fackler is Officer Sweetchuck (Tim Kazurinsky), who has gone, in two movies, from a preyed-upon store clerk to a dominant police officer. Kinda… Traits-wise, he is no different than ever – a panicky wimp caricature – but at least Sweetchuck is what Fackler always ought to have been. (And as an actual “SNL” alum, Kazurinsky has no right being in Police Academies.)
Zed (Bobcat Goldthwait): Oh GOD! NO!!! He’s still around?! They really lean on Goldthwait’s ability to be, er, distinct, trusting that will somehow effectively replace “funny.” Zed seriously needs medication, and a lengthy asylum stay, but not in this world! Gah!
Debbie Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook): Attractive…a female…no, there’s not much else going on here. Though she is still the entirety of this series’ sex appeal, as the screen cap can attest.
Lassard, we’ve met.
Harris, we’ve also met. Of note, he holds an astounding grudge against Sergeant Mahoney, owing to their rivalry in Part One. You’d think, owing to a non-Police Academy world with the potential for character arcs, Harris would be proud that Mahoney rehabilitated and became a police officer. …Nah, these movies are for nimrods!
Kathleen Kirkland (Colleen Camp): Still a cop. Is…physically present.
Bud Kirkland (Andrew Paris): Also a cop. Likes to punch his father’s face.
Mr. Kirkland (Arthur Batanides): Likes to punch his son’s face. Not a cop.
Proctor (Lance Kinsey): Harris’ right-hand-man, having transferred ownership over from Mauser. As a designated villain, Proctor is the butt of many an intrusive Mahoney prank (which includes getting his privates exposed to leering thousands of sports fans, in a move too premeditated and cruel to be cute). We’re meant to find his suffering amusing because he’s a bad guy. In fact, Proctor (though originally a non-goof-off cop) is more foolish than the alleged “fools” who make up the cast above. Progressively, the baddies have become more inept, and the goodies less so, until it seems these movies have totally forgotten what their concept was to begin with.
Also, “Elvis” Nogata (Brian Tochi) shows up late in the game, because they possibly just remembered him. He appears beneath Callahan’s pelvis, which is a perfectly good justification for why Tochi continues to associate with this franchise.
There is also a returning commissioner character (George R. Robertson), another grey-hair who embraces general klutziness with all the rest.
Now, these people are the returning cast mates. Counting, that’s…sixteen characters in total, sixteen characters to juggle over 90 minutes (okay, 88, and that’s with credits). Leaving, mathematically, five and a half minutes per actor. And it’s perfectly likely Blankes and Copeland show up somewhere in here too. And this is just what Citizens on Patrol has inherited from its predecessors. It must pave “new” ground as well, and add more buffoonish, broad characters to the mix. These are the C.O.P.s.
CITIZENS ON PATROL (TO BE)
Tommy “House” Conklin (Tab Thacker): In-film, he is the morbidly obese black person, like Fat Albert or the dreaded Anthony Anderson. In reality, Thacker was a champion wrestler, whose size was a physical advantage. Not that Police Academy 4 treats him as anything other than a visual punch line.
Mrs. Feldman (Billie Bird): An elderly lady who inherits many of Tackleberry’s usual gags. “An old woman acts unlike an old woman.” This is basically the recent Betty White career resurge, only with that trademark Police Academy idiocy.
Laura (Corrine Bohrer): A love interest…for Zed?! No, no, NOOO!...Look, I like having Corrine Bohher (aka Veronica Mars’ mom) around; she’s cute, in an ‘80s way. I hate how it necessitates screen time for Bobcat Goldthwait and – Okay, it’s my problem, I’ll deal with it.
Meet also Arnie and Kyle (Brian Backer and – holy schnikeys, is that David Spade?!), two skateboarding “punks” who represent a sickening attempt for the movie to connect with modern youth culture. As most occurrences of skateboarding in mainstream films are. (Of note, these clowns’ stunt doubles include Tony Hawk – skeletons in closets!) In their introduction, it seems Arnie and Kyle shall enjoy the Mahoney plot line from Part One – police academy as probation for their misdemeanors – except…except after a full 10 minutes or so dedicated to setting them up, they are totally forgotten about, filling out the crowds and doing not much else.
Speaking of filling space…I suppose there’s a trainee named Butterworth (Derek McGrath), but he seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.
There’s one more category to satisfy, as even now the cast is not complete. At least this is a small category.
THE LOVE INTEREST
Claire Mattson (Sharon Stone): A blonde, a part of the abortive attempt to make Steve Guttenberg seem charming. All of Claire’s personality owes to the fact this is Sharon Stone before Basic Instinct and Casino, so no points to you for that, Police Academy 4.
That makes (and now I’m in the realm of pure estimates) 24 characters to cycle between. Back to the calculator! With 88 minutes, that’s three and a half per! We’d be better off watching these people’s audition videos for a reality show.
Boy, I wish I could someday do a plot dissection of a Police Academy, but that’d be like trying to compare Taco Bell to Rick Bayless. The only time these things ever attempt “plot” is at the beginning and end, moments which must frame the randomness in the middle. The beginning, we’ve looked at (C.O.P.); the ending is coming up!
A jailbreak happens (due to Proctor’s stupidity – he’s meant as a competent cop?!). Yes, these climaxes are always premeditated upon randomness, and they even play out in such a manner – cops making random arrests, for whatever gags they hadn’t fashioned yet.
But oh no, some crooks are escaping in a hot air balloon! Whuh?! Okay, brain, I’m shutting you off, for let’s not question the tactics of cops chasing hot air balloons in Wright Brothers era biplanes. Really, this is a conscious attempt to recreate the reality-bursting zaniness of Back in Training’s jet ski finale. It’s not quite as good, because an air show isn’t as foolishly ‘80s as a yacht regatta. Still, a second unit action movie crew evidently produced this sequence, as they did prior, and as such it is the most purely enjoyable moment of Citizens on Patrol.
Well, the second most enjoyable moment. The first is the one that comes next, as the words “The End” appear up on the screen.
With a slight uptick in quality, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol doesn’t suggest much for the overall franchise devolution. So to hell with ending on a deep thought; it doesn’t behoove this franchise anyway! Farewell.
RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Police Academy (1984)
• No. 2 Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)
• No. 3 Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)
• 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)
No comments:
Post a Comment