Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment

Directed by Jerry Paris, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment follows the series’ recruits, including Steve Guttenberg’s Mahoney, Bubba Smith’s Hightower, and David Graf’s Tackleberry, as they encounter rough characters during their inaugural work placement. Filmmaker Paris, armed with a screenplay by Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield, delivers an erratic yet mostly affable comedy that benefits from its agreeable performances and smattering of hilarious digressions, and there’s little doubt that the movie’s easygoing, lighthearted vibe goes a long way towards smoothing over its less-than-enthralling stretches – with Guttenberg’s predictably appealing efforts as the charming central character matched by his various costars. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that Bobcat Goldthwait and Tim Kazurinsky, cast as a larger-than-life gang leader and a meek shop owner, respectively, offer up solid work around the picture’s margins.) And while the whole thing doesn’t really add up to much, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, which is admittedly quite funny here and there (eg Tackleberry’s encounter with his girlfriend’s pugilistic family members is certainly quite memorable), generally comes off as a watchable sequel that captures the energy and atmosphere of its slightly superior predecessor.

**1/2 out of ****