In an American City, somewhere. A newly elected mayor has reduced the requirements for Police Academy acceptïes. Now anyone can Waltz right in and take a stab at it.
From this strange circumstance hilarity shall ensue. As a bunch of people who have no rights being Cops decide to give it their best to tent. Or at least most of them do. Our main character Mahoney has absolutely no interest in being a cop he gets roped in because of a bad deal with a police captain that tells him; 'You can either be a trainee for the police academy or you can go to jail''. He decides to take the former thinking that he can get kicked out of it relatively easily and then back on the streets again.
But that can't happen because of a different deal in wear police captain tells the Commandant of the Academy that he has to keep everybody on and that they're only allowed to quit. They can't be kicked out.
Something to do with the mayor's new deal approach and trying to make the academy look more accepting. Not that any of that matters as they kick Hightower out later on anyways and even Mahoney himself who was supposed to be under special circumstance not to be kicked out.
The film is 1/2 Academy training in where Lt. Harris tries to drill everyone so hard so they quit. And the other half of the movie is just characters all getting up to their own Antics. Like this one guy that dresses up as a woman so we can get into the woman's dorm to have sex of everybody. Mahoney's antics to try and get kicked out.
We get the odd moment with tackleberry or Hooks. Both characters were never that well-defined to begin with. Tackleberrys an army nut who has way too much of a trigger finger. And Hooks is a really shy girl who finds it nearly impossible to talk with any form authority. We do get a decent scene of Hightower driving a car three sizes too small for him.
We get a big Riot scene at the end of the movie caused when one of the cadets carelessly through an apple in the air hit one guy in the head that Domino's into a bar fight that spread into a riot. Eventually leading to a psychopathic wiring two guns off of the dumbest Cadets in the entire Squad and holding the lieutenant hostage before Mahoney and Hightower have the ability to save the day.
The rest of the movie is just training montages and scenarios. Most of which is used for comedic effect. It's in these montages that we find much of the over-the-top slapstick.
Police academies not sure if it wants to be a comedic cop drama with the vaguest sense of a romance or if it just wants to be slapstick like a Naked Gun movie.
It walks the line of being a spoof.
I'm not sure I would call it one.
It stays enough in his own world without completely going over the top and maintaining some form of reality.
Maybe with the exception of one of the very first scenes in the movie where a group of Vandals hijack a photography stand and dump it in the water. There's no Rhyme or Reason to it. It's absolutely absurd that this group of kids would have a giant loading truck and then they just throw this booth into a river without the slightest concern. That part is very cartoony.
In fact the first 10 minutes really feel like an Airplane movie. The scenarios are so ridiculous and so over-the-top then they mellow out a bit during the Middle and then come to a climactic high again at the end. It's a pretty smart way to do a comedic movie of this sort.
Conclusion. Police Academy is a solid comedy. It's got a few decent laugh out loud moments. Lots of subtle humour, some slapstick and voice comedy from Michael Winslow.
There's a bit of raunchy humour and a slight bit of nudity, but nothing horribly offencive. It's just a good time.
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