Film Review: Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

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One of the most annoying things about Hollywood sequels is their tendency to feature or enhance all the bad things from original films, while lacking the good. Airplane!, famous disaster film parody suffered the same fate with 1982 film, aptly titled Airplane II: The Sequel and directed by Ken Finkleman.

The plot begins in (then future) late 20th Century, roughly decade a half after the events described in the first film. Their heroic protagonist, former war veteran Ted Striker (played by Robert Hays), has in the meantime started career of a test pilot only to end up in mental hospital after unsuccessfully trying to warn authorities of the safety issues within Mayflower 1, space shuttle which is about to open first regular passenger line between Earth and Moon. He escapes in the hospital just in time to get on its maiden flight where his former girlfriend Elaine Dickinson (played by Julie Hagerty) again serves as flight attendant. The flight goes smoothly until the computer goes berserk, takes out the piloting crew and stirs the shuttle towards the Sun. Striker is again the only able person on board with enough piloting skills to prevent the disaster.

Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, the authors of the Airplane! refused to work on the sequel and actually didn’t want to do anything with this film. This allowed Paramount Pictures to hire Canadian film maker Ken Finkleman as new writer and director. The opportunity for more creative freedom and driving the film in the new direction wasn’t taken. Apart from sending the plot in the future and thus having an excuse to spoof science fiction films that enjoyed great popularity at the time, Airplane II looks like an uninspired copy of the previous film. The basic plot is the same, the main and even some side characters are the same. Finkleman also uses “saturation comedy” technique by trying to stuff as much gags as possible, hoping that some of them would work. Comparison with the previous film, however, shows that there are significantly less truly funny, original or inspired jokes, and some are overlong. Derivative nature of the film is most visible in its use of famous Battlestar Galactica theme as main part of soundtrack, is featured most likely because of Finkleman’s inability to make a joke that would effectively spoof that series. Although there are some bright spots, like William Shatner in the hilarious role of lunar base commander and Striker’s old wartime commander, Airplane II is huge disappointment not only for those who expected something like Airplane! but also for those who expected reasonably effective comedy. The only thing that makes this film watchable is its mercifully short length. Fans of science fiction spoofs, on the other hand, would be better served by Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs.

RATING: 5/10 (++)