TheLittleSongbird As was said in my review for 'Police Academy 3', 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. Worse was to follow in the series than 'Police Academy 4', but it was from this point in particular when the 'Police Academy' series felt stale.'Police Academy 4' is not entirely irredeemable, it has its moments. It is enlivened by the welcome and much needed presences of George Gaynes and returning (and much missed in the previous two sequels) G.W. Bailey. Bobcat Goldthwait also tries his best and doesn't try as too hard as in the third film.These two also have the best very sporadic moments, the most coming from Gaynes while Bailey's Harris' deodorant/mace gag being the funniest the film got, mean-spirited of course but it was one of the few moments that were actually funny. The music is infectious enough, with the exception of the god awful "Let's Go to Heaven in My Car" (which got a deserved Razzie nomination, losing out to "I Want Your Sex" from 'Beverly Hills Cop II').Most of the humour really doesn't work. A lot of it feels laboured, and much of it was an uncomfortable mix of gross smut and juvenile immaturity. Am aware this is 'Police Academy' we're talking about, where one shouldn't expect too much and not take it seriously, but this was intelligence-insulting dumbness without an ounce of energy to make it slightly more tolerable.Story is even thinner than the previous three films and with the pacing being so leaden it was difficult to forgive. Too many of the subplots are not interesting at all and not that well paced or resolved.Apart from Gaynes, Bailey and to a lesser extent Goldthwait, the rest of the cast are not worth mentioning. Steve Guttenberg completely goes through the motions and it was clear that he didn't want to do another film in the series. David Spade has been much funnier and better since in a poorly written role, and Sharon Stone is lifeless as a character that couldn't have been more thankless. Jim Drake's direction is not as inept as that of the previous film but it does lack momentum and it does nothing with making the incredibly cheap-looking production values look more appealing.Overall, pretty weak and the series was showing signs of being particularly stale at this point, but worse was to follow. 3/10 Bethany Cox

FlashCallahan Commandant Lassard decides that the police force is overworked and understaffed, so he comes up with the idea of recruiting civilian volunteers to work side-by-side with officers in a program called Citizens On Patrol.Mahoney and his friends are in charge of training the civilians.Captain Harris wants to take over Lassard's job, and that's why Harris is determined to see the COP program fail.But it's Harris and his right hand man Proctor who mess up by allowing every inmate at the precinct 19 jail to escape....Part four and even Guttenberg had had enough by the end, he flew off with Sharon Stone. But as you may have read on my previous reviews, I was never a fan of Mahoney.It's more of the same here, little sketches before some random criminals escape and they can have a big showdown.Zed is the main draw again, and this time he has fallen in love with some seriously hot woman.That's the highlight of the movie. The makers knew that the series had run it's course, so they were churning these out as quick as they could.But while this film is one of the worst of the series, it still has some funny (albeit brief) moments.Plus, there is a random scene on a boat involving ninjas for no reason at all.If your a fan of the series, it gives you all the characters in funny situations, and then they all get together at the end.But just not as funny.

Michael_Elliott Police Academy 4 (1987) ** (out of 4) The police force is overworked and understaffed so they come up with an idea to train citizens so that they can patrol their own streets. Of course our gang gets a group of rejects that they must train into shape. This was the beginning of the end for this series and while there are a few funny scenes the thing still can't keep afloat. The regular cast including Guttenberg, Smith, Winslow, Graf and Easterbrook are back but we've also got G.W. Bailey coming back as Harris, the main villain from the first film. Harris actually steals the film and gives an energized performance but that still isn't saying too much as the screenplay is very weak and basically just recycles jokes from previous films. Even the regulars seem rather tired and bored. Bobcat Goldthwait is back as well but most of his jokes seemed aimed at his bad speech. Heck, we even get a pre-fame Sharon Stone and David Spade but neither add much. The best sequence for me has always been the one where the veterans try to teach the new guys that they aren't ready to be police and take them out on the case of a voodoo man who is actually being played by Smith.

Michael DeZubiria 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!