Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

Director: Alan Metter

Cast: G.W. Bailey, George Gaynes, Michael Winslow

Synopsis: The veterans of Police Academy travel to Russia to tackle the Mafia.

The usual motley collection of cadets (although few – if any – original members) are sent to Moscow to help bring Russian Mafia boss Ron Perlman (Tangled, 13 Sins) to justice in Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, the seventh and, to date, last of the series.  Perlman is planning to gain control of the world’s stock market through the use of an addictive computer game which infects computers and gives him access to private files.   Much mayhem and hilarity ensues…

Any film with the number 7 after the main title is going to be pretty dire, and this inept rubbish is no exception.   Not only did I not laugh once, I didn’t even smile.   God only knows why they decided to resurrect the franchise after five years, but you’d have thought they would have at least employed a screenwriter who knew what most people find funny.   Early on in the film we see Charlie Schlatter altering a police file on the computer so that he is included on the jolly to Moscow.   Immediately afterwards he is summoned to the commandant’s office, but in the next scene is seen suffering an attack of vertigo at the top of a rope in the gym.   Scene after that, guess where he is?   Try telling me that isn’t sloppy filmmaking of the highest order, and I’ll be thinking you’re the director’s mum.

Still, on the positive side, it’s been eighteen years since Police Academy: Mission to Moscow was made, so the signs are good that this wretched franchise has finally died the death it deserved after Part Two proved to be a dud.

(Reviewed 23rd January 2012)