Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988)

Perfectly adorable

Good concept, poorly executed.

An unexpected masterpiece

Absolutely the worst movie.

As has been said before in my reviews for the previous four 'Police Academy' films, the best of the 'Police Academy' films will always be the original by quite some way. It isn't great and will never be a favourite comedy or overall film of mine, but it clearly knew what it wanted to be so it was easy to take it for what it was and what it set out to do.It was followed by six sequels, and none of them were as good or even on the same level as the first, though admittedly some are worse than others. Most of them are actually being pretty bad or worse and lose what was enjoyable about the original in the first place. While it was with the fourth film where things properly got particularly stale, it was from the fifth film where finding redeeming qualities proved to be difficult.Not that 'Police Academy 5' doesn't have them. It has two mildly amusing gags, one with a golf ball and the other involving falling into the water and an alligator. The best performance by a large margin comes from Rene Auberjonois, who seems to be having fun and really makes an effort to liven things up (and he succeeds).Even with the presence of George Gaynes, G.W. Bailey and Michael Winslow, high points previously, only Auberjonois comes close to giving a good performance. The regulars do do their best but are let down by awful writing and characters that sees bumbling taken to wild extremes that it becomes irritating and intelligence-insultingly stupid. Matt McCoy is an incredibly bland and wooden lead, filling in for Steve Guttenberg (him leaving the series was a very wise decision for him).'Police Academy 5' looks cheap, with budget and time constraints written all over it, and generally it is also one of the most ineptly directed films of the series. The music, so catchy and infectious in previous instalment, is forgettable at best here and often that is being too kind on it.Anybody who disliked the writing in the previous three 'Police Academy' sequels will outright hate it here. The dialogue is often mean-spirited and low-brow, and the gags are almost completely unfunny all round (apart from two amusing gags that are not close to being series highlights). They suffer from pedestrian timing and from taking immaturity to a whole new level that one feels their IQ has dropped.While it has been well established that people don't see the 'Police Academy' films for their stories, the story here feels repetitive and incredibly lazy in execution, and it's only with the kidnapping subplot (which doesn't gel with the rest of the film) where there's a little more momentum. The climax is overlong and dumbness replaces genuine excitement.Overall, a mess. 2/10 Bethany Cox

This movie begins with "Captain Harris" (G. W. Bailey) and his mindless subordinate, "Proctor" (Lance Kinsey) breaking into the office of "Commandant Lassard" (George Gaynes) in search of anything that might be used to their advantage. What they discover is a document which contains information that the Commandant has reached an age which mandates his retirement. Needless to say, this news comes as a very, very welcome surprise to Captain Harris--to the extent that even the announcement of the Commandant being selected as "the Police Officer of the Year" doesn't disturb him in the least. If anything, it spurs Captain Harris to fly to Miami Beach where the award is to be presented so that he can hob-nob with the police commissioner in order to further his ambitions of becoming successor to Commandant Lassard. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film suffers from not having either Steve Guttenberg (who played "Officer Mahoney") or my personal favorite, Bobcat Goldthwait ("Zed") in it. Fortunately, Matt McCoy (as "Nick") managed to fill the vacancy of Steve Guttenberg to a certain degree and some of the other characters—most notably Leslie Easterbrook ("Officer Callahan") and the aforementioned George Gaynes—managed to step up a bit as well. So it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Even so, being the 5th movie of the series this film still had a hard time duplicating the success of the first or second pictures and as a result I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Fifth times a charm? well actually this film does get back on track somewhat after the terrible fourth. The first Academy film without Guttenberg as the wet ass Mahoney, so we get another Mahoney-esque character in Nick Lassard...cos they need that all round good looking good guy who pesters/stalks the sexy women in these films.The plot is quite straight forward as usual, Cmdt Lassard is up for retirement (after Harris brought it to everyone's attention) and is being given a heroes send off in Miami. So off he goes with his regular band of loyal officers. Everything gets spoilt though when an accidental bag switch with some criminals equals Lassard having some stolen jewels and the criminals getting his pet goldfish.While this still continues the trend of a PG film there is still a reasonable amount of fun to be had with the highjinx. The plot being set in Miami of course equals lots of obligatory tanned ladies in bikini's and clichéd poolside slapstick. While its not dirty or seedy its relatively easy going and watchable which is surprisingly really. I think this film is much closer to a Pink Panther type film with the trio of incompetent criminals trying to nab Lassard's bag, that combined with the standard predictable pranks on Harris.Once again though we have the repetitive training aspect of these films...yes again. Because the guys are at a convention for Lassard's award there is yet more police procedural demonstrations which once again gives all the characters the chance to demonstrate their quirky skills. Tackleberry and his guns, voice commands with Hooks....do I really need to go through this again? The only new addition to the team this time is Thacker as Conklin from the previous film, as you may have already guessed his huge weight comes into effect for some visual gags.This time around its actually the bad guys that save the day in my opinion. Usually its Harris and Proctor who are still good fun here but the trio of crooks are admittedly amusing. There is a really nice air of quality slapstick with these guys, especially the boss played by Rene Auberjonois whose obsession with his hair and nasal voice make for a perfect greasy bad guy. His two sidekicks are both kinda dumb and your standard heavy handed mobster types but there is a credible Three Stooges act going on there.This doesn't excuse a lot of childish crap though, you know they are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel when they actually use a fart in the elevator joke. Then there's the old drugged unconscious gag with Harris, setting his straw hat on fire, writing 'dork' on his chest with sunblock and a really nasty 'Jaws' send up.The finale is yet again another chase sequence on water (clearly run out of ideas) with all the predictable stuff that you'd expect to see on water. Again it does look good as a visual spectacle as do most of the PA chase sequences, but its so very hollow and comes across more like a stunt man's show. Everything is tied up in a neat little bow with Lassard being allowed to carry on for another hundred years or so despite the fact he's useless and all is good with the world again.Its very very bland and very very hokey, most of it is performed and filmed like an instructional video on how to make (attempt) slapstick, but from the third film onwards we know that don't we. Despite all that its a fairly enjoyable romp and is certainly better than the fourth film, at least we get a breath of fresh air with the location. I do like how they do the films titles each time though, quite like this one in particular.5/10

Police Academy 5 (1988) * 1/2 (out of 4) Cmndt. Lassard (George Gaynes) is forced into retirement but he does get a trip to Miami Beach and of course his gang goes along. Lassard picks up the wrong luggage at the airport and soon jewel thieves are after him. The series was going downhill pretty fast here and with the absence of Steve Guttenberg there's really not too much anyone can do. Not to mention that the look and feel of this has TV movie written all over it. The biggest problem is that the jokes just aren't here. The screenplay is full of childish moments but none of them gets laughs and I might go even further and say the film is lazy by recycling more jokes from previous films. The best sequence is when Harris (G.W. Bailey) falls into the water and gives a loud scream when an alligator starts to come after him. Smith, Graf, Winslow and Easterbrook are all back but there's no lead here strong enough to carry the picture and none of these actors can do it on their own. I'm sure fans of the film, including myself, will get a few grins out of the movie and the cast members do have a certain amount of charm but this should have been it for the series.