Though most of the stars got back together for Airplane II: The Sequel, the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team passed the torch to new writer-director Ken Finkleman, who manages to reprise the style of the original quite well but is, as perhaps expected, more or less one-third as funny. The premise, alarmingly similar to the dead-straight contemporary Starflight One, is that the first commercial passenger shuttle to the moon has 2001-style computer hassles en route and finds itself headed straight through an asteroid belt into the sun. Cracked-up test pilot Robert Hays and... promoted-from-stewardess technical expert Julie Hagerty have to save the day, despite panicking passengers, inept ground staff, complicated trauma flashbacks, deadpan one-liners and deliberately dodgy special effects. Leslie Nielsen is glimpsed only in footage from Airplane that sets up an extended slapping-the-hysterical-passenger gag redone (into the ground) here, but Lloyd Bridges and Stephen Stucker return as the overly-intense airport crisis controller and his happy-go-lucky gay sidekick. There are sterling cameos in the patented agonisingly serious mode from Raymond Burr (a judge), Chuck Connors (cigar-tossing fire chief), William Shatner (who gets the best sight gag) and Sonny Bono (impotent mad bomber). Back in the early 80s, it was still possible to do mild gags about paedophilia (not only Graves's chumminess with the cute kid who visits the cockpit, but also the priest looking at the centrefold of Altar Boy magazine) but aside from some incidental naked breasts, the humour is a touch cleaner than in the first film. Hays and Hagerty are better than the material, and it's all over swiftly enough--the film clocks in at 75 minutes before the slow, padded end credits--to avoid wearing out your patience. The end title promises an Airplane III, but we're still waiting. The 1.78:1 widescreen ratio of the DVD allows you to see gags in the corners of the frame that would be cropped in a full-screen transfer. --Kim Newman [show more]
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Sequel to disaster movie spoof 'Airplane!'. Ted Striker (Robert Hays) has been confined to a mental institution after a space shuttle he was test piloting crashed. Ted knows that this was due to a computer error, but no-one will believe him - not even his ex-ex-girlfriend, air hostess Elaine (Julie Hagerty). Determined to prevent the maiden flight of a shuttle identical to the one which crashed, Ted forces his way on board, but his problems are only beginning: Elaine has a slimy new beau, Simon (Chad Everett); a lunatic bomber (Sonny Bono) is determined to blow up everyone and everything on board; and the flight crew have run out of coffee...
Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. In this hilarious sequel, the first lunar shuttle to fly out of a commercial terminal takes off and the vessel's computer navigation system fails sending it hurtling towards the sun.
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