Kino Lorber
If you enjoyed the new Naked Gun movie, then strap in for Airplane II: The Sequel.
Airplane II: The Sequel is a perfect time capsule of 1980s comedy in all its glorious imperfection. Both the original Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel were on constant rotation on the cable channels when I was in grade school. I was too young at the time to get all of the jokes.
Mostly, I was laughing at the sight gags, bathroom humor, and female nudity, because boobs are always funny when you are a kid. With the new 4K Blu-ray release and a few more decades under my belt, Airplane II is like a whole new movie.
You don’t have to see the original movie to see Airplane II. For the most part, Airplane II is almost a carbon copy of the first film, dressed up in an outer space / sci-fi shell to cash in on the Star Wars frenzy of the time.
Airplane II sees the launch of the first commercial shuttle, The Mayflower, to the moon. But no flight in an Airplane film is safe. The Shuttle is riddled with design flaws, but corporate investors push to launch anyway, having already buried the truth of the danger.
Ted Striker, hero of the first film and now test pilot of the landmark first commercial lunar shuttle, tried to blow the whistle on the flaws and cover-up, but was declared insane and put away in an asylum by the powers that be. When news reaches him that Mayflower is launching with his ex-girlfriend, Elaine, and a shuttle full of passengers, Striker escapes the asylum to try and stop the launch. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Can Ted and Elaine land the shuttle and save everyone, or will there be just one more crater on the moon?
The studio wanted a sequel to the original Airplane!, but the original creative team of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker weren’t the ones to give us the sequel. Rumors floated over the years between Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker not wanting to do a sequel, and having ideas for a Godfather-inspired spoof that they couldn’t get the right people in place for.
Finally, the studio brought in Ken Finkleman to give them what they wanted, more of exactly what worked before, to the chagrin of the original creators.
And to be fair, Finkleman delivered.
The two films feel as if they were made by the same creative team. It was years before I realized it was directed and written by Ken Finkleman and not the creative genius that also brought us The Kentucky Fried Movie and TOP SECRET!. Finkleman understood the assignment and delivered the humor perfectly. Airplane II continues the tradition of comedy based on wordplay. Some of the lines are so quotable that even though I hadn’t seen the film in years, my husband and I were giving the lines just before the characters deliver.
Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty both reprise their roles as Ted and Elaine. The comic chemistry is still there. The cast is a who’s who of 1980s comedians and characters. If you are familiar with the pop culture of the time, you’ll be pointing at the screen going, “Oh, it’s that guy!” from fill-in-the-blank with this TV show that you probably watched a million times when it was in syndication.
Where the first Airplane! movie was a spoof on disaster movies, Airplane II leans into the sci–fi craze of the time. There are a plethora of visual Easter eggs. Airplane II has at least a dozen references alluding to 2001: A Space Odyssey, several nods to Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica abound. It’s a full-on cinematic scavenger hunt right down to the little details in the background. If you blink, you’ll miss the Invasion of the Body Snatchers tribute.
Bring in William Shatner to add a dash of Star Trek. Shatner knows exactly why he is there, and he brings his full Shatner. It’s great to see William Shatner having a grand time making fun of himself.
While the majority of the sight gags are based on pop culture, a chunk of the gags rely on knowledge of topical subjects that were all over the news at the time. It will be interesting to see how the jokes will play to modern audiences now.
Without the context of Ronald Regan’s administration, or knowledge of the terrorist airplane hijackings of the 1970s and 1980s, those jokes may just go right over the audience’s heads. (Yes, pun intended).
Be warned, it is an 1980s comedy. With that comes some jokes that are just cringe now. In an era where one of the 80s’ defining anthems was “sex sells”. The use of female nudity as a quick visual gag just comes off as cringeworthy now.
There are moments where some of the jokes are chauvinistic, and at other times, the film is challenging traditional male views with its humor.
If you can see the humor in being a product of its time and set aside the cringe factor, the rest of the film is worth every ridiculous second.
Extras include two audio commentaries and a trailer.
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