Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

I have talked to a lot of people who didn’t like Airplane II: The Sequel, complaining that 80% of this movie is just recycling jokes from the original Airplane!  I can’t argue with that, but I can observe that those recycled jokes made me laugh even though they were being told again.  Maybe it says something of the writing, the material or the execution that the jokes are funny enough that an encore kept me laughing.  Maybe I’m just easily amused.

That’s really the only report that I can make for this movie.  Criticism of a movie like this comes down to whether or not you laughed, and yes, I laughed quite a lot.  Apparently, I laughed more than most people who saw the movie, and based on interviews I laughed more than the people who wrote the movie.  One of those writers, Mike Reiss, claimed that he and his writing partner Al Jean were warned not to take the job and that they regretted it.  I’ve got news for them; they have nothing to be ashamed of.  In a world that contains four Cheech and Chong Movies with only about two laughs between them, I feel that I was better for the experience.

The story is beside the point.  Instead of an airline disaster, this time the disaster is wrought through the first shuttle to the moon, and what do you know, Robert Hays is on board again and so is his love Julie Haggerty, and what do you know, the ship is sabotaged and is headed for disaster.

It’s hard to really write a review here since many of the gags are visual, and involve backwards puns, forward puns, sight gags, spot gags, sign gags, pot shots, double shots and word play.  The joy of both movies is that the script throws a joke at you about every three seconds, compared with most comedies that throw a joke at you about every ten minutes, I like this ratio much better.  It means that if even half of the jokes work then you’ve still had a good time.  I laughed, quite a lot.  Maybe it’s just me.  I don’t know.