Police Academy 4 - Und jetzt geht's rund

Indeed, that is the question many were asking in 1987, as the series soon turned into too much of a not so good thing. Sadly, it was only going to get worse from here. I've tried no less than three times to sit through Mission To Moscow, and it is just impossible. About the only reason to bother with episodes three through six is so you can see the final episode where Cast Member X decided they'd had enough. Or when Event Number X that was referenced in a sequel took place.

Another big problem with PA4 (and boy, there are many) is the change in target audience. Sure, episodes 1 through 3 could be enjoyed by children with two digits in their age, but the primary audience was adults who didn't have very high standards. Unfortunately, someone in the film studio must have decided that the writers have to please everybody, and so they watered down the humour as far as they could without getting a G rating. That, more than anything, is what hurts Police Academy sequels 4 onwards.

Steve Guttenberg must have taken one look at the finished product and wondered why he didn't quit about three films ago. Bob Goldthwait picks up the slack in terms of comedy, but his act is also watered down a tad too far, ditching any vocal expression of his character in favour of shouting and screaming at anyone and everyone. Which might work for a comedy about mental patients who have been neglected by the system for too long, but not when your character is meant to be a police officer. But then again, the whole premise is built on a notoriously shaky ground.

Every Police Academy film has at least one celebrity (other than George Gaynes) who wishes they had never appeared in the film. Sharon Stone gets her turn her, and despite what they say about her appearance in everything after Basic Instinct, at least she looks capable of acting. But amongst this lot, I'm sure a dead goldfish would appear to be emoting effectively.

Overall, PA4 gets a 2 out of ten from me. It stands as a good relic of what happens when you try to appeal to everyone, and it does have some genuinely funny moments, but it just cannot hold a candle to its predecessors, especially the first.

So I watched Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol last night, the one thing I really noticed here on IMDb is that the ratings just keep going down after each movie. But I still wanted to see them and judge for myself, I loved the first Police Academy, the second and third are cheesy, but they were fun still. Now onto Citizens on Patrol, I honestly liked this film, I know it was cheesy and cliché, but with G.W. Baily back in his game, you can't go wrong. Again, one of the things that surprised me is that they've been able to get the same cast back over and over again, we also have two of my new favorite characters: Zed and Sweetchuck. It was great to have the old gang back together, even if the movie needed a little work, they still made the movie very enjoyable.

The Police Academy is given a new assignment, there is a new program called C.O.P., Citizens on Patrol, taking regular people off the streets and turning them into cops. Mahony has taken a few misfit punks off the street and made them join, there's an old lady, there's the average or less then average people in the program as well. But Captain Harris hates this program and will do anything to shut it down, but when there is a jail outbreak, he may just have to rely on the C.O.P. program to help him out.

Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol has it's good laughs here and there. I always love to watch the jokes the gang plays on someone, my favorite this time was how they super glued the mega phone onto Harris's lips. I would recommend this if you are looking for a couple laughs, I think people are bing a little too harsh on these films. They're the Police Academy sequels, they're light hearted and fun, they're meant to just relax and laugh for a bit at the stupid stuff. But I did feel like this is the weakest I have seen so far out of the sequels, it could have had more laughs, but it is worth the watch.

5/10

Police Academy were an almost constant feature growing up - the number of sequels watched, and in what order, was something of a badge pride in those days! For my part, my scorecard was completely out of synch - Parts 2 and 6 on VHS, the original on terrestrial, etc. Anyway, I have a bit of affection for Part 4 (for all its shortcomings) as the only chapter I ever saw in a cinema, one summer holiday in 1987, St Andrews, Fife. The story is daft, the acting variable (GW Bailey makes a welcome return, while George Gaynes aces it as usual), the jokes are hit and miss, and the series has quite clearly ran the course....but I'll always associate this one with warm summer evenings and pristine white sands. To be enjoyed as a bit of nonsensical and undemanding fun.

POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL is in my opinion, the best of the POLICE ACADEMY movies. It is extremely funny for a sequel. I have seen this movie at least ten times on television and I feel that this movie is one of the best movies of the 80's. It is truly hilarious. I love it. I think it is one of the best comedies ever made.

So what's happened so far? A gaggle of society's goofiest citizens have taken advantage of a new policy to loosen hiring standards at the police force and actually made it through despite efforts from all directions to get them thrown out. They embark on their first assignment, which is to turn around Commandant Lassard's beloved precinct 16, which has been dubbed the worst precinct in the city and given 30 days to turn around or suffer some major employee turnover, a fate which is relentlessly helped along by the eternally butt- kissing Captain Mauser. They display a spectacular feat of water-borne police work, saving the academy and then return in the next movie to beat the city's other police academy when it turns out that the governor decides it's not worth the money to keep them both open.

Oh, and of course you all realize who is in this thing, right? None less than Sharon Stone, David Spade in his first film, and Tony Hawk in an early stunt-skateboarding role! You gotta see this!

This time, Commandant Lassard has come up with a scheme he calls Citizens on Patrol (C.O.P. Get it? Get it?), in which he elaborates slightly on the plot of the original movie. You see, the police force has been stretched a little too thin and the public has developed a negative opinion of them due to the fact that they can't be everywhere at all times to stop every single crime in the city. So the natural solution, of course, is to train the public as deputy police officers and basically have briefly trained undercover cops all over the city.

In fact, so close is the resemblance to the first movie that we are even treated to a couple characters who are forced to join the police academy or face jail time – an idea suggested, of course, by Mahoney himself.

This is the best part of the movie, by the way. There is a hilarious gang of skateboarding punks who are disturbing the peace left and right, headed by none other than David Spade, who is a hardened urban predator if I've ever seen one. Thug life, baby!!

Sharon Stone also has a relatively small role in the film, although probably one of the ons that she would like to forget about, and Lieutenant Harris is back after being gone for the last two movies. All of the other relevant cast members return, with the addition of a new group of misfits, like the token fat black guy, David Spade and his idiot skateboarder friend, and Tackleberry's FATHER-in-law. Remember that guy? Who is always gleefully punching out his son? I can't wait until the grandparents start joining!

But don't worry, until then we have Mrs. Feldman to hold us over. Here's this sweet old lady living in a nursing home/military barracks and who has more of a love of all things camouflaged than Tackleberry himself. In fact, I was waiting the whole movie for her to tell her that she's his long lost mother, but no such luck. Something went wrong with the screen writing in there somewhere, but ultimately she turns out to be one of the most consistently funny characters in the movie. She's played with a good-natured smile by Billie Bird, who clearly enjoyed herself while making the movie. You can always tell when the actors are having a good time, and it always makes the movie better, which is good because this movie needs a lot of help!

Of course, it's not much different than the last three movies as far as being worth watching. Bud and his father are still trading punches and it's still more groan-inducing than laugh- inducing, people are still accidentally wandering into the Blue Oyster Club, which hasn't been funny for three movies by now (Proctor inadvertently wandering in naked was the high point of this gag, but also the point where it becomes the most clear that the joke has lost its steam), and Jones is still doing that Bruce Lee impersonation which was funny in the first movie when I was a kid, but as an adult not so much… But, Callahan has a great wet t-shirt scene that makes the whole movie worthwhile!

Oh, and was Mahoney's mischievous grin ever amusing? That poor guy, man. His reputation has for some reason become so tarnished that he is seen by most of the public as even more of a washed up has-been than, umm, well no one else really comes to mind. Bill Paxton? Nah, he's cool, I think. I never needed to forgive him for Weird Science, but Guttenburg unfortunately has a whole string of bad sequels to make up for, and Cocoon and Short Circuit are just not gonna cut it! At any rate, super-gluing the loudspeaker to Harris' face was funny, but why they missed out on the opportunity to have Harris screaming through it at high volume at the doctors in the hospital I just can't understand. The screenwriters are not scoring many points in this one!

But still, this is one of the better Police Academies so far. This one and part 3 are the best ones in the series that I've seen so far, despite the hilarious 1980s badness (there's a boot- legging crime lord, for example, who operates his illegal warehouse standing around with a fistful of cash and a hula hoop around his shoulders), but there definitely are some fun gags. Harris macing his armpits is one is one of the more memorable gags in the whole series, along with Mauser getting his hands glued to his hair, and I have to admit that I enjoyed some of the scenes of the original recruits trying to recruit the public for the new C.O.P. program. It's not a good movie, but it's a good Police Academy movie!