AIRPLANE!, AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL

AIRPLANE! contributed to the demise of the dominance of the disaster film just as much as beyond lackluster disaster films AVALANCHE, THE SWARM, WHEN TIME RAN OUT, BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, and AIRPORT ‘77 and THE CONCORDE … AIRPORT ‘79. It was like the decisive blow and disaster movies disappeared for many years.

AIRPLANE satirized disaster films in general and the AIRPORT series in particular. The team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker ripped their ridiculous plot straight from the 1957 Paramount Pictures film ZERO HOUR starring an exclamatory title and Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden, and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch. I watched ZERO HOUR (sans exclamation) after learning of the fact that it directly inspired AIRPLANE, and it’s scary how much AIRPLANE lifted from the earlier film. It is also fitting, because Arthur Hailey co-wrote the screenplay for ZERO HOUR and wrote the 1968 novel AIRPORT that became the beginning of the disaster film craze when AIRPORT hit box office gold upon its March 1970 release.

A decade later, millions were obviously clamoring for a sledgehammer attack on disaster films, because AIRPLANE finished behind only THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, 9 TO 5, and STIR CRAZY at the American box office in 1980.

Abrahams, Zucker, and Zucker not only had their way with disaster films, but they ripped to shreds both famous individual scenes (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, KNUTE ROCKNE ALL-AMERICAN) and standard narrative devices. They especially had some devious fun with flashbacks and voice-over narration courtesy our rather square, good-looking protagonist with a troubled past (Robert Hays’ Ted Striker a perfect match for Dana Andrews’ Ted Stryker in ZERO HOUR. Andrews’ Stryker also brings to mind his troubled character 11 years earlier in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES).

In the process of satirizing movie genres, AIRPLANE created its own genre that has endured far longer than disaster films and gave birth to new old movie stars like Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, and Peter Graves, whose ability to play it straight at every moment made at least half the joke work.

(Disaster films have periodically made huge comebacks like when INDEPENDENCE DAY, TWISTER, and ARMAGEDDON became super blockbusters late in the apocalypse-minded 20th Century. Definitely not my favorite trend. For the record, I hate both TWISTER and ARMAGEDDON, and I have never managed to make it through INDEPENDENCE DAY in spite or more precisely because of all the hype and euphoric glee that came with it and still comes with it years later.)

Yes, we have seen virtually every movie genre under the sun parodied, quoted, and (less frequently) satirized. We have lived through all the immediate AIRPLANE imitations, the Z-A-Z Boys’ own movies, and everything from the works of the Wayans Brothers to Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. At some point, let’s say early in the 21st Century, I dreaded the parody movie even more than its various targets.

Most of these later parodies miss the satirical bent that gave AIRPLANE, TOP SECRET, and THE NAKED GUN, as well as Mel Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, BLAZING SADDLES, HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1, and SPACEBALLS, their special verve. The later parodies seem far more willing to merely quote from a blockbuster movie and to just leave it at that. “You’ve seen it before and now, let’s see it again, only done less effectively.” Honestly, what’s the point and more precisely, what’s so funny about that?

For many years, I passed on AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL, especially after learning that Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker were not involved. The boys apparently sent out a press release before the release of the sequel that stated just that.

The crack research team just unearthed this David Zucker gem from 2015: “Jim just said, ‘If your daughter became a prostitute, would you go and watch her work?’” That’s one way to look at THE SEQUEL, one of the cheaper, less essential AIRPLANE imitations out there. The addition of more stars (Raymond Burr, Chuck Connors, William Shatner) makes it even cheaper.

I laughed a couple and smiled a few times during THE SEQUEL, but mostly I watched this comedy that attempts maybe 500 jokes in an indifferent state. The laughs were front-loaded and I found it challenging to even remember them at the back end of the picture. Have you ever had that feeling, where you’re stuck in the middle of a movie thinking about how much you were enjoying it earlier and now you’re dreading it and the remaining seconds and minutes?

There’s almost nothing worse in the movie world than a comedy that fails, since most human life forms love to laugh, even or especially at the dumbest and corniest jokes. We are prepared to laugh during a comedy. We want to laugh. So, when you find very little or absolutely nothing to laugh at over 84 minutes, all this hostility builds up inside you and you get very upset about how you have wasted 84 minutes of precious time which you could have wasted on something else.

Never mind, I should have passed on THE SEQUEL and just watched AIRPLANE one more time.

 

AIRPLANE! ***1/2; AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL **