Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach [1988]

EMM# : 19573
Added: 2016-08-15

Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988)
Captain Harris is about to lose his trouser and his mind in Miami!

Rating: 4.3

Movie Details:

Genre: Comedy (Crime)

Length: 1 h 30 min - 90 min

Video: 1920x1072 (23.976 Fps - 2 050 Kbps)

Studio:

Location:

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The old Commandant Lassard, leader of the Police Academy (1984), goes to Florida to receive an award. In the city arrives also the cynic Captain Harris who wants to take Lassard's job. Harris wants to place himself in a favourable light in front of the high military hierarchy but, at the airport, Lassard exchanges his bag with another one... Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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The cynical Captain Harris and his dim-witted lacky Lt. Proctor finally finds the goods he needs to push Commandant Eric Lassard out at the Police Academy: he is one year late for mandatory retirement. But before he retires, Lassard is chosen as "Police Officer of the Decade", and brings his favorite graduates Sgts. Hightower, Jones, Tackleberry and Hooks, Lt. Callahan, and new graduate Officer Thomas "House" Conklin to the National Police Chiefs Convention in Miami Beach to celebrate with him.

Harris and Proctor decide to travel down to Miami Beach to discredit Lassard once again so Harris can attempt again to take over the police academy for himself. But Harris and Proctor are tricked into chartering an old rickety cargo flight down to Florida while the police academy group travels first class aboard a 747 plane.

While there, the misfit police officers meet Lassard's nephew, Sgt. Nick Lassard of the Miami Police Department. The fun is complicated when he unwittingly takes a bag belonging to jewel thieves containing stolen merchandise.

As the jewel thieves try to get the bag back, and Captain Harris tries to prove to Commissioner Hurst that he's the right man to replace Commandant Lassard, the usual hijinks ensue, including Lassard trying to guess the annual procedural demonstration.

At the awards ceremony, when the jewel thieves kidnap Commandant Lassard, he goes willingly, thinking it is indeed the procedural demonstration. It launches a negotiation, which Captain Harris botches, getting himself captured as well. A chase across the Everglades ensues to rescue the oblivious and absent-minded Commandant. During the chase, Harris falls overboard and is nearly eaten by a large aligator, until Hightower dives into the water to rescue him and subdue the aligator. When the chase leads to the end, Lassard is held at gunpoint by the jewel thief's leader, still thinking that it's a demonstration. When Nick tells his uncle that this isn't a demonstration, the elderly Commandant knocks out the jewel thief by himself and captures him.

The next day, when Commandant Lassard is giving his "Police Officer of the Decade" award and announces his retirement from the force, a loophole by Nick shows that his mandatory retirement is in fact optional and that he can retire anytime he wants to. Lassard then changes his mind about retiring much to great joy and applause.

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LeRoyMarko from Toronto, Canada
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The first "Police Academy" movie was good. The second one was interesting. The third and fourth were forgettable. But this one is abysmal. Note to the producers: this is suppose to be funny. There's a few scenes that merit a smile, but the movie is generally boring. Great to see Harris and Lessard, but I miss Mahoney and Sweetchuck. Thank God it's got a short running time. And thank God I got it for free at my local library. This is it for me folks, I'll stop at the 5th installment of the series and leave the rest to those who want to waste their time. Seen at home, in Toronto, on January 21st, 2007.

54/100 (BOMB)

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Bones Eijnar (namriggs@hotmail.com) from Trondheim, Norway
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I really don't get it with these movies; thought the makers that after so many bad movies that THIS, this fifth would really break threw with it's extremely original story and laughs - well, no.

The movies don't get a bit better, they just keep getting worse. The laughs are so childish, so boring and stupid that it's very difficult seeing the fun in this at times. The characters that were in the first one original and entertaining, hasn't grown one day older and it gets stuck. It doesn't leap forward, nothing really interesting or entertaining happens, so it's just so fabulously bad! The whole Police Academy thing isn't that an awful idea, but it's the way that they simply kept stretching the limits of the whole plot. The thing gets really silly, really childish and awfully bad, and what's with the thing that always the makers wants to have this new, bad thing popping up at the end?

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s-woodier from United Kingdom
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This film had me in stitches!!! Literally. In my outrage at how awful the film was, I left the cinema early, grumbling and grasping around in the darkened auditorium. I passed a famous golfer who was sitting in my aisle, however I slipped on one of his loose golf balls and tumbled to the floor. The whole cinema audience started laughing! They were pleased that they had gained at least one laugh from their miserable experience. Such a shame that a man breaking his back in real life is funnier than Police Academy 5. I was visited by the golfer some months later, he arrived at my hospital ward. He had brought me some grapes and a copy of Police Academy 7...

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kdulai from United Kingdom
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It's a tiresome continuation of the same depressingly futile, execrable material that plagued the series from #3. A hopeless pantomime consisting of extended camp chases, the Captain being coated in various effluvia, oafs falling over and so forth. The PG certificate squeezes out the raunchy spirit which enlivened the original.

The Alzheimer-ish buffoon Commandant Lassard is propelled to the fore with no effect upon the quality, which would be laudable if there was any. Guttenberg's libidinous, puerile cretin character, Mahoney, is missing yet unmissed. The rest of the shamelessly worthless crew are back exhibiting timing which would embarrass a wristwatch from the Poundshop.

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tyler-and-jack from Edinburgh.
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If you're a fan of the Police Academy movies, or even if you've just been forced to endure them for reasons you'd rather not go into, then the fifth film in the series isn't the worst film you'll ever see. It's not the worst film in the series. It is certainly below average though.

Most of the gang return, though this is the first instalment without Steve Guttenberg or his character (Mahoney) in the mix, and this time the flimsy plot concerns Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) heading to sunny Miami for a tribute to his good work. He takes along the regular cast members and also manages to pick up the wrong luggage at some point, luggage that belongs to some incompetent robbers who would really like to get their stolen goods back.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't chuckle on a few occasions while watching this movie but the laughs came despite the obvious, weak gags. Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt though I'm sure others completely disagree with me on that point. Although they're looking a bit tired by now, Michael Winslow, Marion Ramsey, David Graf, Bubba Smith, Leslie Easterbrook, G. W. Bailey, Lance Kinsey and even George R. Robertson (who played Chief/Commissioner Hurst in six of the movies) still manage to coast along with their portrayal of characters that audiences have grown to enjoy spending time with. Matt McCoy as Nick Lassard (the commandant's nephew) is a major weak link, just too bland to prove an able replacement for the character of Mahoney, but Rene Auberjonois almost makes up for this in the last half hour or so when his villain gets to engage in some great banter while trying to evade capture.

Writer Stephen Curwick and director Alan Myerson both fail to bring anything worthwhile to the series. The former provides a limp script that works best when rehashing the gags we've all seen before while the latter just doesn't put any real effort into the execution of the material. But, then again, who could come in at this point and make the whole thing feel fresh and new again? Probably nobody, which tells you all you need to know about how much mileage there was to be had in the first place.

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mbekiumpopo from New Brighton
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Amusing golf ball slippage indeed. I split my pant laughing. Funny noise man- I shat myself. Tall man - I burst my kidney. Quiet woman who shouts at the end - I leaked urine with laughter. Gun man who likes guns - I burst my colon and shat myself: so amusing.

This was was notable for the silly men slipping on golf balls and for Captain Harris' trouser falling down in the airport.

I am laughing still. Laughing, soiling, leaking urine and reminiscing about this pant splitter of a movie. I love it.

I shall recommend it to all of you as one big mother of a pant splitter. You will laugh, cry, soil, split and above all leak at this movie.

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Paranoid_Idiot from United Kingdom
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Goodness me, this is probably the funniest film I have seen since Police Academy 4, which I watched immediately before this. I cannot describe how pant sh*ttingly amusing this film is. Several times during watching it, I swear I sh*t my pants laughing. I accidentally ripped my trouser in my fit of joviality.

I sh*t bricks, leaked urine and gained a pain in my jaw from my incessant grinning and trouser splitting jollification.

Kubrick couldn't have done a better job with this. Directed by Kubrick, this would have been a grey, stagnant and cold piece with little thought for characters slipping on golf balls and such.

What a beautiful, valid piece of cinema. This had to be seen in the cinema as mass laughter is better than solitary laughter in your living room. The audience virtually burst my eardrums in the cinema. It was incredible. Lots of people, all ripping and soiling their trousers due to expanded stomachs and gasping for air, due to jollification and leaking urine in unison.

I'll never forget this one.

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Uriah43 from Amarillo, Texas
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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 afore-mentioned 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.

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Phil Hubbs from UK
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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

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ldavis-2 from I am here. Where are you?
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Crossed up by Harris, our heroes - led by a wimpy Bobby Sherman look-a-like - must clean up his mess and rescue Lassard. As every second counts, what do they do? Coordinate with Miami PD and the FBI? Heck, no! They change into Police Academy shorts and t-shirts! This and the very idea of Lassard as Officer of the Decade is fair warning you better check your brain at the door before watching "PA 5" or your head will explode! Of course, if our heroes had any brains, they (and Harris) would be ecstatic that someone was actually stupid enough to take Lassard off of their hands! Too bad the movie is so lame, because it's actually ahead of its time: Harris never goes anywhere without Proctor; Harris mocks Proctor's pass at a woman; Harris and Proctor get foam on their noses while sipping "potato" coladas; Proctor wears a wet suit showing his ass-ests; the wimpy Bobby Sherman look-a-like becomes Wayne Gretzky's ball-busting fiancee's bitch; the Bobby Sherman look-a-like writes on Harris with semen-like sunblock. There ought to be a law! Hee! Hee!

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Certifications:
Argentina:13 / Australia:PG / Finland:K-10 / Finland:K-11/9 (2001 reform re-rating) / Finland:K-12/9 (2012 reform re-rating) / France:Tous publics / Iceland:L / Netherlands:6 / Norway:11 / Portugal:M/6 / Singapore:PG / Spain:T / Sweden:11 / UK:PG / USA:PG (certificate #29073) / West Germany:6