Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

In 1980, The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) writing team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker had effectively killed off the disaster movie (it would make a return many years later) with their riotous spoof Airplane! which replayed the entire plot of Hall Bartlett’s Zero Hour! (1957) replacing the original’s deadly earnestness with an avalanche of absurd plot digressions, ludicrous sight gags and groan-inducing puns. It was a huge hit and remains a classic of its kind, certainly far better than the similarly intentioned but often witless Scary Movie series or the truly awful series of spoofs made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Date Movie (2006), Epic Movie (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008), Disaster Movie (2008), Vampires Suck (2010), The Starving Games (2013)).

Its success demanded a sequel and, inevitably it proved to be a disappointment. Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams had no involvement with the follow up and Paramount called instead on the services of Ken Finkelstein who they had already asked to pick up another franchise when he write Grease 2 (1982). And that had gone well hadn’t it…? Tasked with both writing and directing Airplane II: The Sequel, Finkleman was found lacking and he largely repeats the formula from the first film, just relocating it into space for no good reason other than science fiction films were all the rage in 1982.

It’s the near future and a lunar colony is serviced by regular flights aboard space shuttles. A new model, Mayflower One, has been rushed into service despite the concerns of both its test pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) and ground crew supervisor The Sarge (Chuck Connors). But management over-rides their concerns and the Mayflower sets off with Striker aboard, soon reunited with former love Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty). In the cockpit, the mission is being overseen by Captain Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves), navigator and co-pilot Unger (Kent McCord) and first officer/flight engineer Dunn (James A. Watson Jr) while other crew and passengers include Elaine’s new fiancé Simon Kurtz (Chad Everett), on-board computer ROK 9000 and Joe Seluchi (Sonny Bono) who is planning to commit suicide by blowing up Mayflower One with a briefcase bomb he’s bought from the spaceport’s shop before it reaches the moon. On the ground, air traffic controller Steve McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges) struggles to deal with the rapidly escalating situation while on the moon Commander Buck Murdock (William Shatner) of Lunar Base Alpha Beta is still harbouring deep resentment towards Striker because of an incident over Macho Grande…

Airplane II touches on all of the big genre hits of the day, starting with a Star Wars (1977) inspired crawl setting the background, mixing in the theme from Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979) and finding room for obvious and feeble gags about ET trying to phone home but being discouraged by the high cost of the call and the inevitable tip of the hat to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Finkleman manages to find a lot of jokes – many of them recycled from the first film – and inevitably with this many being bandied about it’s no surprise that few hit their target, the the hit-to-miss ratio is noticeably lower than it was in the first film.

The Ronald Reagan Hospital for the Mentally Ill is a nice touch (inevitably meaningless to many younger viewers after all these years) and the “over Macho Grande” routine never fails to amuse but it all misses the inspired silliness of Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams. It would be a foolish cinema-goer who wanders into an Airplane film hoping for anything as ridiculous as aan actual story but there seems to be even less of a coherent narrative this time than there was in the first outing which at least had an existing plot on which to hang its madness. The fact that this time the craziness is set on a spaceship has surprisingly little impact really – it could just as easily have been set on an airliner again for all the difference the minor science fiction content makes.

The film comes to life when William Shatner turns up, taking over from the first film’s Robert Stack as Striker’s embittered former commanding officer, still brooding over the disaster that befell their squadron during an ill-defined war. He trades on his Star Trek (1966-1969) persona, getting a nice bit of business with a monitor screen that turns out to be a window in a door and expressing some concern over a mysterious bit of lunar base kit that doesn’t actually seem to do anything. Doors only open if people make noises that sound like the Star Trek doors and Shatner, like Leslie Nielsen in the first film, plays it all perfectly straight, as though Captain Kirk had been downgraded to a more mundane job and is slowly being driven mad by the “blinking, beeping and flashing lights.” The film is all the better for his presence and is one of the few reasons to stick with it even though he doesn’t turn up until well into the final reel.

The jokes are unapologetically corny, we’ve seen or heard most of them before, usually told a lot better, and the story never really amounts to very much. It’s a disappointing follow-up to one of the sharpest, funniest spoofs ever made and failed to replicate the first film’s success with both the critics and the cinema-going public. A final caption promises/threatens “Coming from Paramount Pictures: Airplane III” though Murdock pops up to suggest that “That’s exactly what they’ll be expecting us to do!” And of course it never happened. The Zuckers and Abraham went on to make Top Secret! (1984) and create the Naked Gun franchise while Finkleman‘s career never really amounted to anything at all.

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Crew
Directed by: Ken Finkleman; Paramount Pictures; Produced by: Howard W. Koch; Written by: Ken Finkleman; Director of Photography: Joe Biroc; Edited by: Dennis Virkler; Film Editor: Tina Hirsch; Original Music: Elmer Bernstein; Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton; Special Effects: Robert N. Dawson; Special Visual Effects by: Phil Kellison; Production Designed by: William Sandell

Cast
Robert Hays (Ted Striker); Julie Hagerty (Elaine Dickinson); Lloyd Bridges (Steve McCroskey); Raymond Burr (the judge [D.C. Simonton]); Chuck Connors (the sarge); Rip Torn (Bud Kruger/President Reagan); John Dehner (the commissioner); Chad Everett (Simon Kurtz); Peter Graves (Captain Clarence Oveur); Kent McCord (Dave Unger); James A. Watson Jr (Dunn); William Shatner (Commander Buck Murdock); Stephen Stucker (Controller Jacobs/courtroom clerk); John Vernon (Dr Stone); Al White (witness); Sonny Bono (the bomber [Joe Seluchi]); Laurene Landon (Testa); Wendy Phillips (Mary); Jack Jones (lounge singer); Art Fleming (himself)

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