POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL (1987)

Commandant Lassard starts up a new program called "Citizens On Patrol" where citizens work alongside normal police. How very, very exciting.

Nobody in their right mind gives a fuck about this story. It’s all just an excuse to introduce new cadets. So, who do we got? David Spade as an adult teenage skater, Brian Backer as another adult teenage skater, Tab Thacker as some giant dude, Corinne Bohrer as a preppy (I think) who falls for Zed, Billie Bird as an old lady version of Tackleberry and various boring people. It’s all very dumb and ends up in a hot air balloon chase. Yawn.

Dull story, not one single joke that can be considered actually funny (for example: during the hot air balloon chase, a cop gives a warning shot and shoots straight up into his own balloon), dead on arrival acting, okay pace, a script that is really just a series of skits, zero nudity outside of a super fast wet t-shirt on Callahan, various unattractive people in the background, a skateboarding montage featuring Tony Hawk, old jokes being hammered into the ground, an abrupt ending, multiple characters including Hooks, Mrs. Tackleberry and Hightower who almost completely disappear from the last half of the movie, a random ninja fight. I'm curious as to why early on they made such a big production of showing that two of the cadets are skaters, but then never had them skate even one time once they showed up at the academy?

Overall, POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL seems like it was written for dim-witted children. Unless you’re a glutton for lame movies, then I can see little reason to waste your time on this clunker. When Corinne Bohrer showed up early on, I felt a glimmer of hope since she was so awesome in JOYSTICKS and SURF II, but nope. She did ease the pain some, but she wasn’t in enough scenes. Can you relate?

Part 1 - Police Academy (1984)
Part 2 - Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)
Part 3 - Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)
Part 5 - Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988)
Part 6 - Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)
Part 7 - Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

POLICE ACADEMY 3: BACK IN TRAINING (1986)

Due to budgetary constraints, the still unnamed city (which this time looks like Toronto) must shut down one of their police academies. Which one could it possibly be? The one from the first film or the one we’ve never heard of until just a few seconds ago? Nobody knows. They’re gonna have to compete to find out. And by compete, you’d think it would be some kind of police Olympics or something with a score to follow, but nope it’s just some boring judges. So anyway, shit happens and Commandant Lassard calls in some of the cops from the first film to teach the new cadets. It’s literally just a bunch of shit we’ve already seen before except this time with zero nudity and lamer jokes. For example: a citizen is unhappy with a payphone, so psychopath Tackleberry shoots the phone; cadet Zed is so crazy that instead of using a key to start a police car, he hot-wires it with his mouth instead and one character (Nogata) is so smitten by the size of Callahan’s breast that he messes up what he was going to say. I mean, this is some real knee-slapper shit right there.

It's kind of surprising how fast this series turned to shit. Not that part 1 was amazing or anything, but it was at least entertaining. Part 3 though is barely even watchable. Early in the film, a fly lands on a woman’s face (how does she not feel that?) so Commandant Lassard just hauls off and hits the woman in the face so hard that she falls out of her chair! How is that even funny? Dude just assaulted a woman.

Zero nudity, zero laughs, dumb story, dumb characters, cheesy acting, dead on arrival humor. I don’t even know what the fuck was going on in the making of this movie. Like what about it did the filmmakers think that audiences wanted to see any of this? But it did make money, so what the fuck do I know?

I one part of the movie, some of the cadets are chilling out in the rec room watching V on television. When that happened, I remember thinking that I wish I was watching V instead myself. Now, after watching the rest of this clunker, I wish I had flipped over to V. Oh yeah, Tackleberry walked by and shot the television.

[Update 2/11/2025: Had a dream last night, a very serious dream in tone, about Mahoney and Hightower being on patrol in a post-apocalyptic situation and Mahoney is bitten on the shoulder by a zombie. But instead of calling it in, Hightower takes Mahoney to a park and they talk until Mahoney dies, then Hightower shoots him. It was kinda like in the original DAWN OF THE DEAD when Roger was bitten and Peter watches over him.]

Part 1 - Police Academy (1984)
Part 2 - Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)
Part 4 - Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)
Part 5 - Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988)
Part 6 - Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)
Part 7 - Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)