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I watched Police Academy and Revenge of the Nerds more than any nine-year-old should have (although perhaps not as much as others did) on home video, but even I was skeptical of - and ultimately underwhelmed with - the first sequels. I saw Police Academy 2 on video shortly after its release, on the same night as the first film, and I recall falling asleep, the antithesis if there ever was one of all the sequels I grew up loving more than the originals, or viewing before the originals. I did not see any of them in the theaters and though I have some slight affection for the third one, watching the fourth one for the first time last week convinced me once and for all not to pursue parts five, six, or seven.

I was excited for Revenge of the Nerds II and did see it opening weekend but had not felt compelled to see it again before watching it for this column. When all was said and done, I ended up more disappointed in Revenge of the Nerds II this time around (which isn’t to say I enjoyed Police Academy 2 that much more) precisely because I found Revenge of the Nerds more compelling on every level, even outside of my pre-adolescent drive for the naked female form on celluloid. The sequel pisses away all the goodwill from the first one. Conversely, Police Academy is lackluster in most elements, but particularly in the area where I had expected it would remain strongest: its ensemble. Instead, everyone is pretty much a one-joke pony (if that). Most shockingly, Mahoney,(the character that launched Steve Guttenberg to some kind of stardom a quarter of a century ago) and who to a not quite10-year-old seemed like the swinging ladies’ man incarnate is revealed to be nearly as asexual as Jughead from the Archie comics. It may be strongly implied that he is the beau of the boudoir, but on the basis of the evidence in the films, Tackleberry gets laid more than Mahoney does (and the love scene between David Graf and Colleen Camp is one of the two funny scenes in Police Academy 2).

Like the first film, Police Academy 2 functions more as a series of skits tenuously holding a plot together than as a story (or jokes) with payoffs. This comes partly from the decision to hold the sequel and the ones that followed to under 90 minutes (saving a plethora of deleted footage for the television premieres), and partly because the cast is so huge, there is no way to keep them altogether. On top of that, at least half a dozen major new characters are added - some who will pop up in later installments, some not - such that it becomes akin to sitting through a run of bad sketches on Saturday Night Live, hopeful that the next one will be good, or at least short and painless.

What Police Academy 2 does have in its favor is Bobcat Goldthwait, in his feature-length big-screen debut, as Zed, the gang leader of a pack of miscreants who terrorize the series’ nameless town after apparently having been nixed as extras from Repo Man. With a physical presence suggestive of a Tex Avery character hopped up (er, down?) on an amphetamine-Quaalude cocktail, Goldthwait growl-slurs his lines with a loud soft loud cadence presaging some early ‘90s alternative rock bands, piecing together sentences such that one would be hard-pressed to predict their end from their beginning.

Zed/Goldthwait is so completely out of tune with the rest of the movie that he becomes watchable first by default, then to see precisely when and where next he will hijack the movie. The sequence where the gang “terrorizes” a supermarket is the only sustained bit of lunacy in Police Academy 2. It carries on for at least a couple of minutes, far longer than it needs to, but remains watchable precisely because of its off-kilter vibe. I don’t know why Zed didn’t appeal to me when I was a child - I specifically recall finding the scenes with him the least interesting - and what is to “blame” for the change of heart. Do I have the maturity now to appreciate anarchic juvenilia? Have the spans of time ravaged my critical taste buds? Regardless, Zed works best in small doses. I shudder to imagine an entire movie pitched at that tone and volume.

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