Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

Undescribable Perfection

Redundant and unnecessary.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The seventh POLICE ACADEMY film and the one that notoriously killed off the franchise (TV series and planned remake aside). This one sees the few remaining familiar faces heading off to Russia to combat an evil megalomaniac who plans to put Trojan horse software into a popular video game franchise he's created.It's as ludicrous as it sounds, but what really hurts MISSION TO MOSCOW is the lack of talent involved. I never thought I'd miss Steve Guttenberg but I really did and David Graf is no substitute. Michael Winslow is the only one I have any remaining liking for and even he's more annoying than funny here. Poor old George Gaynes and G.W. Bailey play out the same tired gags that they've been running since the first instalment.It's fair to say that I never laughed once during this puerile gag-fest in which all the jokes are well telegraphed, the slapstick is painful rather than amusing, and the acting embarrassing. This is the infamous POLICE ACADEMY that Christopher Lee appeared in as a favour, although thankfully he's not on screen too much. As for Ron Perlman's villain...well, Perlman has made his disdain of the movie widely known, so there's not much more to be said than that.

So Russia finally lets the US of A film in their country around important historical communist landmarks, and what is the first production to gain this honour...Police Academy 7.The first sequence in the film and straight away I notice a huge blooper! The news reporter on TV is playing with a Gameboy (I think), apparently playing a new popular game. On closer inspection, as we get close ups, you notice there isn't actually a game cart in the back of the GB, utter fail in the first five minutes.The plot kinda sounds OK when you think about it, the Russian mafia laundering money under the guise of a highly addictive and popular video game. The bad guys use this game to be able to hack into any computer system it has been played on, hence they are able to commit many crimes. So Lassard and his best men are brought in to bring down this Russian gang led by a well cast Perlman.The cast for this final outing is sparse, we still have Tackleberry, Jones, Callahan, and Harris, but we are missing many of the regular officers such as Hightower, Hooks, Proctor, Fackler, Nick Lassard and of course old Mahoney. This time without Nick Lassard as the Mahoney replacement, we have another replacement, this time for Nick Lassard! This new recruit looks like a young Matt McCoy (Nick Lassard) but has none of the charm, I'm not even sure why he's in the film really as he pretty much does nothing.That is the whole problem with this film, nothing actually happens. There aren't really any pranks, not many laughs, no training sequences (thank god) and not much plot excitement. There is one amusing sequence where Harris and Tackleberry join in on a Russian ballet performance in full get up, but that's about it really. There are some silly acrobatics from some Russian cops that seem to be mute, a mediocre car chase and a small hint of humour. Not even Harris or his Russian equivalent can help this film.Unfortunately its a poor exit for the franchise with this final film, the last film was quite good at times but this is really dull and not at all visually exciting, its all filmed on location in Russia but it looks grim. Cultural differences are of course used but none of it really works, its just not funny. The fact that Cmdt. Lassard spends half the film AWOL with a Russian family merely by accident just seemed like the writers had no idea what to do with him, he's virtually a cameo. Quick mention for Christopher Lee who looks quite good as the Russian Cmdt. but I have to wonder why he agreed to this bottom of the barrel flick. The final curtain falls on this quite historic franchise but not to a standing ovation I'm afraid, bit of a stinker.2/10

The final nail is hammered into the coffin. Grossing less than $1,000,000 at the US box office and for good reason. The film relies on jokes about the Russians and their accents. Even Hooks, Hightower and Hurst fail to reappear. Gaynes is given top-billing, but is reduced to a "lost in Russia" subplot. Bailey has nobody to play off making his character the downer for the first time. He needs a Proctor to riff with. Lee and Perlman do their best with bad accents, but just aren't interesting. Winslow, Graf and Easterbrook are used too much, making their characters do things we're not familiar with. Schlatter is a kind of Mahoney, but he's never truly likable. Bad jokes, wasted characters, and a sense that nobody cares about what is going on, leaves this film as useless as you'd expect.

A Russian mafia boss(Perlman, who can't not be a badass... he is only human, though, and he can't save this; neither can a Stalinesque Lee) has put out a new cartridge(played on the GameBoy, available from Nintendo at your local stores in a variety of colors!; also, going by the first scene(by the way, did they have nothing to cut to?), you don't need to insert it to play it), and there's some crime or somesuch. Clearly the writers didn't care, so why should we? Trust me, when you find out what the supposed plan is, it's beyond ridiculous. I watched the second movie, the third and then this on TV. Not sure why they skipped the three inbetween... I have a hard time imagining that they were worse than this. At this time six years had passed since a flick in the series(you know, back when they cranked them out as if their oxygen supply was depending on it). You might think this time was spent on a script. You would be wrong. This is violently unfunny, with extremely poor, uninspired and half-assedly executed gags. Do you laugh when you see things flying back and forth through the air? If so, this is for you. Literally, I think that was their goal. Try to count the amount of objects that you'll see this happen to. They're also unbelievably culturally insensitive. If this stuff was at least clever, or had genuine observations, but it's based on a proud ignorance(and clear fear) of anything beyond the borders of the US. Had this been seen by many ex-Soviets, the Cold War may have started back up. Not just because it's offensive, no, also on account of how incredibly stupid it makes its country of origin look. Look. I have guilty pleasures. We all do. This one, however, crosses a line that I'm not sure anybody realized existed. You see, whenever the production of a creative enterprise is undertaken, there's an expectation that actual effort will go into it. If nothing else, by accident. This manages to avoid that entirely. A lot of energy must have been spent on keeping it out. The acting is bad. Characters are cartoons. The "humor" is screwball without skill. Cinematography and editing are average at best. At least there are hot chicks. There is brief nudity in this. I recommend this to those who have to experience the dread for themselves. 1/10