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The Lambda Lambda Lambda crew attends a national fraternity conference where they are once again picked on by a prick-ish douchebag (a young Bradley Whitford replacing the original’s Ted McGinley) and must rise up against their oppressors. If the film was funnier, the lack of raunchy laughs might not be as noticeable, but a tamed down Booger just isn’t as funny. Not helping matters - despite the return of all the key players, Edwards mostly sits this one out (Gilbert stays at home with a broken leg) leaving a big vacant hole at the film’s emotional center.

This is one of only six features directed by producer/former studio head Joe Roth (others include America’s Sweethearts and Christmas with the Kranks) and whatever his successes in those positions, he has no sense of comic rhythm, how to punch up a scene, or pull memorable performances from his cast. Far from a fiasco, it’s simply a rote illustration of the belief that assembling a lot of the same elements for a sequel is the key to success. If there is no understanding of how those elements interacted to create something memorable, the endeavor is primed for failure.

In the early 1990s, third and fourth installments of the franchise (The Next Generation and Nerds in Love) with most of the original cast members aired as made-for-television movies on the still young Fox Network. I have seen neither of these movies but from their descriptions, and even allowing for less raunch than Nerds in Paradise, I take it as an act of faith that they are more tolerable than the failed pilot for the 1991 sitcom version of Revenge of the Nerds (it airs as an extra on the first movie’s “Panty Raid Special Edition”).

I am still dumbfounded that it actually aired. Featuring actors I don’t recall stumbling across in the last 20 years doing horrible community theater interpretations of Lewis, Gilbert, and Booger, it boasts a laugh track that evokes cries of desperation and sucks the marrow out of the first film in order to fill 22 laughless minutes. A reboot of Revenge of the Nerds in 2006 by 20th Century Fox production label Fox Atomic fell through after only several weeks of shooting (for being too raunchy?) and has not been revived.

I am not sure if I am in any better position to answer my question - vis a vis neutering raunchy comedies to promote the longevity of the franchise - than I was at the start of this column. Ultimately, it seems like the most cynical of moves (acknowledging that your film was viewed by a lot of underage teens, you make a movie that they can then see, although they probably won’t want to) even if these aren’t franchises whose fates I lose any amount of sleep over at night. I’ll see how I feel if the world is up to Police Academy 6… again… at the end of this decade.

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