Police Academy 7 - Mission to Moscow (1994)

The cadets head to Moscow to help the Russians deal with the Mafia.

If you love the Police Academy films... you'll still hate this

The Police Academy series came crashing to a halt with the ill-fated and much belated Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. It's a film which leaves you asking Why? What? How? And why again? (a question that just can't be asked enough). Shot in Russia during the 1991 coup (rather than the 1993 constitutional crisis) but not released until three years later, and then in conditions of near-total secrecy, it took a pitiful $126,247 in the US, a staggering 1/670th of the first film's gross and about $126,246.97 more than it's worth. It's a film so astonishingly bad it almost staggers the imagination. The human vocabulary has still not evolved to a level that can truly articulate just how utterly wrong this film is.

Lazy, badly acted, hopelessly directed, plastered with inept musical Mickey Mousing and cartoon sound-effects to underline non-existent jokes, barely even scripted and photographed with all the artistry of a basic cable infomercial, this seems to have been made in the vain hope that - by applying infinite number of monkeys with infinite number of typewriters logic - if you point the camera in the general direction of the cast and they make some noise vaguely resembling human speech, you might just get something funny if you keep the cameras rolling long enough. Nothing is developed or possesses even the vaguest level of internal logic: why, after battering a hole in a hotel door, do two characters just walk away, bored? Is it because nobody bothered to finish writing the scene? Why does G.W. Bailey disguise himself as a ballerina to arrest Ron Perlman? Is it so inexplicable because the scene with the exposition just never got filmed because they ran out of money? Considering the quality of the rest of the film, it can't be because it was too bad to include - you get the impression that if they shot anything, it's in the picture no matter how bad just to pad out the running time. Every expense has been spared. Aside from not even affording a number 7 for the title, let alone retakes, there's no big stunt finale, no Russian Blue Oyster Bar (admittedly that joke retired in Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol), and, aside from George Gaynes' Commandant Lassard and G.W. Bailey, only three of the original cast return, and they go through the film with a palpable air of despair that all their hopes and dreams of a glittering career have come to this. RichardCat's IMDB review sums up the sheer despondency of the cast perfectly - the performances do indeed have the sense of `souls bleeding.' Definitely one mission you should decline.
February 13, 2008

Best of the Series!

Tagline: Kicking buttski. Making you laughski. The Academy is backski!

If you haven't seen this movie, you really should do yourself and your loved ones a favor and check it out. I know a lot of people think the Police Academy series wasn't too great after the first one, but they are dead, dead wrong.

First of all, the loss of Steve Guttenberg as Mahoney is no great one, as his character was silly and unbelievable. This film puts our favorite recruits in Moscow (which is near Russia), and has a delightful fish-out-of-water premise. Now, for those that haven't seen the prequels, you should know that the Police Academy men and women are a ragtag group of ne'erdowells who use plain moxy and hijinks to solve crimes. In many ways it's similar to the Law and Order TV show, but much much funnier.

You will be amazed at all the silly sound effects that the sound effect policeman makes, and you will be charmed by the general buffoonery that the rest of the gang makes as they try policing Moscow. It may be out of their jurisdiction...but this movie proves that there is no jurisdiction for funny.

On a more serious note, this movie came out at the height of what is known as "the Red Scare" in America, and instead of dealing with the tensions between two world superpowers with heavyhanded, treacly drama like Warren Beatty's ultra-conservative "Reds," Police Academy's Mission to Moscow makes excellent socio-political commentary under the guise of a lighthearded romp, and it pays off in spadeskis! (If you want to turn American words into Russian words, the best way is to add "ski" to the end of them. Ditto for Polish things).

This movie is a treat for almost all of your senses!!! May 23, 2007

MADNESS IN MOSCOW

I've only seen two of the POLICE ACADEMY movies; the original and this one. This surely didn't inspire me to run out and get 2 through 6, but it had enough laughs to entertain me. Most of those laughs came from the crusty George Gaynes; Michael Winslow's attempts to disassemble Christopher Lee's mental state; Ron Perlman's over the top performance as the head of the Russian Mafia; and a few other moments of inspired hilarity. The POLICE ACADEMY series never achieved the quality of NAKED GUN or other spoof movies because it never knew when to stop, and it used redundancy instead of innovation. It seems they are remaking the original for release in 2006; wonder if it'll be any good? Who knows, but really, if you want to wasted 90 minutes with a few good laughs, this will do. April 17, 2005

Charles Schlatter joins the team in Moscow.

This movie went straight to video.
After 10 years of Police Academy films, we finally have reached the last one for a while until 2006.
Original cast members returning: G.W. Bailey, George Gaynes, David Graf, Michael Winslow and Leslie Easterbrook.

Charles Schlatter is the new guy (who later got busy in CBS Diagnosis: Murder tv series). This time their special skills are needed in Moscow, Russia were they meet Christopher Lee, Ron Perlman, Claire Forlani and many Russian actors.

What put the screenwriters in a Russian mood? Perhaps they should have gone back to Miami Beach or visited Las Vegas?

Highlight: Leslie Easterbrook is really singing.
Followed by an animated cartoon series in 1988 and a Police Academy tv series in 1997.
February 24, 2005

Not THE worst anticomedy ever vomitted out, but...

...that's only because that shameful position belongs to "2001: a Space Travesty", the most horrible celluloid garbage in history. However, "Police Academy VII" comes very close. In fact, I feel these two "films" should share the title. Additionally, they're both excellent contenders for the title of the worst film, not just comedy, ever made. ("Manos", you say? "Manos" is an example of highly professional and entertaining filmmaking compared to PA7 and 2K1ST...) September 14, 2004

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