Roads? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads.: Police Academy

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Patrick and I were feeling pretty charged going into this one. You know, we figured this whole experiment would break us down at some point, but that wouldn’t be until like the 5th or 6th movie. The first Police Academy had been a big hit, it was the only one that was R-rated… it was probably going to be at least a little funny. Definitely the funniest of the bunch, and maybe not a bad movie overall.

Look at how excited we were, early that morning.
Looking back at this picture, I almost feel disgusted with my naivety.

About 10 or 15 minutes in, I was already becoming aware of my own hubris. I can tell, because in our notes I wrote down “10-15 minutes in… no laughs.”

And the situation didn’t improve much after that.

The jokes were so bad, and the filmmaking so incompetent, that half the time I couldn't even tell if isolated lines and scenes and moments were supposed to be funny. The “funny” dialogue was indistinguishable from the serious dialogue. I think someone involved in the production must have realized this too, because the editing really tries to underline some of (what I will generously refer to as) the punchlines. A scene will end on what I guess is supposed to be a zinger or punchline, and as it cuts to the next scene, the picture would do this sort of goofy flip transition. It’s hard to describe, but it was kind of the visual equivalent of a slidewhistle sound effect. In fact, given the level of humor we’re talking about here, I’m kind of shocked that there weren’t any slidewhistles. That would have at least made the film feel a little nutty.

So, Police Academy, it turns out is like a wannabe Stripes; an 80's style party-vibe comedy complete with female nudity and a flippant sense of humor. Or, at least, that's what it aspires to be. (And in the case of the titties, succeeds). It takes place in an unnamed city, and the mayor declares that to increase police enrollment, they will pretty much start letting anyone who wants into the academy. Hence setting the stage for a bunch of crazy characters to run amok at the police academy, etc etc. You know this movie is in trouble when the lead character "Mahoney" is a Bill Murray type, but he's being played by Steve Guttenberg. Guttenberg as Mahoney is supposed to be a crass but lovable party-anaimal who brings down the establishment with his zany antics. Only he's not lovable, and his antics aren't funny.

When he's introduced, he gets into an argument with some bald asshole, and I think this is supposed to be the part where we fall in love with Mahoney by illustrating what a funny rebel he is. So, to show us he's a free spirit, he, uh, points out that the other guy is wearing a wig. "Wig! Wig! Wig!" he shouts. And that I believe counts as Mahoney's first joke. Hilarious.

But you know what? It gets worse. Fuckin' Mahoney turns out to be a complete fuckin' sellout. Instead of taking "the man" down a peg or subverting the authority of the Police Academy, Mahoney decides to take this police shit seriously, and he cleans up his act to become a model citizen. He wasn't a rebel at all, just some whiny punk who didn't get enough structure in his youth.

We also ended up theorizing that Mahoney, despite his vague attempts at fucking Kim Cattrall in the movie, is a closeted homosexual. See, he repeatedly listens to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's classic gay sex anthem Relax, which raises a red flag. Then, he plays a prank on some other trainees by telling them to meet him at a bar, which turns out to be a gay bar named the Blue Oyster, where of course the men are immediately sexually assaulted by the flamboyant clientèle (the gay panic level in this movie is alarmingly high). Thing is, Mahoney offers up the address of the bar without a moment's hesitation, as if he were intimately familiar with the locale. I would kind of like it if our theory is true, if only because it means he would be a 2 dimensional character instead of 1 dimensional.

The stealth anti-hero of the movie turned out to be this clumsy guy whose name I don't remember. He keeps accidentally hurting other people, especially his wife (rampant misogyny = blockbuster!) and it's never funny. But at the end of the movie, he accidentally starts a major riot, doesn't realize he did it, and then in the middle of it all he sneaks off, changes out of his cop clothes and steals a suit, and completely shirks his duty. It's subtle, but I think he's truly the Bill Murray type rebel. He still sucks though.

So there's a cast of kooky characters like Hightower (the Big Black Guy), Hooks (mousy black girl), Tackleberry (the gun nut), Callahan (basically Hot Lips Hoolihan with bigger tits) and a bunch of others, and not a single one of them turn out to be funny in any possible way. They are only defined by their one character trait, and then the movie doesn't even bother to make any jokes about that. If Hightower shows up in a scene, the movie simply points out that he is tall or strong or black, and that's it. Hightower is in 6 of the movies, and the complete lack of a joke was so transcendental to us that Patrick and I just started screaming "Hightower is strong!" or "Hightower is Tall!" every time he appeared. The closest anyone comes to being funny is the guy who plays Cmdt. Lassard; he doesn't actually do anything funny, but he's a Leslie Nielsen type who has a certain charm to him.

About an hour into the movie, Patrick caught me already slacking off and ignoring what was going on. Here is our first moment of shame of the day, me rewinding Police Academy to watch what I missed:

Christ, I have a large fucking forehead.

This movie fucking sucked. I hate its simpleton mentality, its blatant homophobia, its faux-rebellious but secretly commercial values. I hate America for making it a hit. It inspired me to start drinking at 10 in the morning.

Still, though, it was a painless kind of suck that inspired an empty kind of hate in me, so Patrick and I were still pretty enthused by the end.

I was starting to feel a buzz, and the soothing tingle of the alcohol was telling me that everything was going to be OK. If I kept up the liquid courage, this marathon would be no problem at all.

Patrick and I did a wrap-up, where we discussed what elements we liked/didn't like/wanted to return for the sequels. Well, frankly, I don't think we wanted anything to return for the sequels except maybe more hot naked titties. But, trying to be fair, we liked Lassard, thought the guy who made funny noises could maybe in some way have potential, and the gun nut guy could maybe be funny in a better movie. We wanted to lose the gay panic, the goofy editing, the asshole villains (except Harris, who you will remember as the asshole with the cane), but in a moment I bet he'll be regretting when he reads this, Patrick actually expressed his desire to see clumsy guy come back. His prophecy would come true, and we would end up ruing his presence in the sequels.