Too many movies too many similarities
 Jun 9th, 2007
Advantages:
Pretty funny if you like slapstick humour, has bonus features
Disadvantages:
Too much of a muchness, generally pretty expensive
Recommendable:
No
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  IzzyS
About me:
The Ciao gremlins are at work again - shoo; shoo! sorry if I dont re-rate you, let me know, I cant s...
Member since:27.07.2006
Reviews:234
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Review rated by 19 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
This is a complete collection boxset that contains all 7 of the original Police Academy movies. They vary in classification, with the original movie being 15 rated, the sequel and the 4th film is 12 rated and the others (the 3rd, 6th & 7th movies) being PG. That being the case, im sure kids (about 7 or 8 years or older) would find the PG ones pretty funny. I saw these movies when I was younger and remembered getting a good laugh from them, hence why I bought it. I've got to say, im not overly convinced that its worth shelling out the money for the complete collection, the reason being that in my eyes alot of the movies are very similar and the jokes/humour re-hashed, with alot of repeated situations and so on.
The movies date mainly from the 1980s, with the original film dating from 1984 and the last, 'Mission to Moscow' being from 1994. This your reminded by the fashion sense shown in the movies, which is kinda funny in itself in my opinion! The names of the 7 movies are as follows:-
Police Academy (the original movie) (the 'complete collection' boxset includes the '20th Anniversary Special Edition' version) Police Academy 2 - Their First Assignment
Police Academy 3 - Back in Training Police Academy 4 - Citizens on Patrol
Police Academy 5 -
Assignment Miami Beach Police Academy 6 - City Under Siege
Police Academy - Mission to Moscow (the 7th and last movie) The movies are all about a bunch of police recruits who all have their own quirks, their own specialities such as Officer Larvell Jones (played by Michael Winslow) who is able to throw his voice and confuse others by making them believe their surrounded by cop cars when he's the only one there or making it sound like the metal detectors found something on them and so on and Officer Laverne Hooks, (played by Marion Ramsey), who has a very quiet and timid voice but if made to, boy can she shout and get her own way! and of course there's always Officer Mahoney, the rebel of the bunch who has a habit of playing practical jokes and often gets in trouble (played by Steve Guttenberg).
Other characters include the wacky Cmdt. Eric Lassard (played by George Gaynes), who all the recruits look up to and have to guard against the somewhat villanious Captain Thaddeus Harris (played by G.W. Bailey), who is always wanting to take over Eric's job and become their boss. I would go through the stories for each of the movies but to be honest their all so similar, I can't really remember and you probably wouldn't be able to either if you watched them all over a few weeks as I did. Personally, my favourite movie is the 5th one entitled 'Police Academy - Assignment Miami Beach', where they all get to fly down to Miami to attend a Police Conference and Cmdt. Lassard gets kidnapped, so its up to the ex-academy 'misfits' to save him and save the day. Its still pretty funny, I like the naivety of Lassard's character, which is blatantly clear in this movie!
Its definately not something to take too seriously, there's alot of basic slapstick humour and toilet humour, nothing particularly intellectual really. The films are good for anyone looking to while away a couple of hours and get a few cheap laughs, if your needing a cheer up and want to sit in front of the TV and have to make no effort to keep up with extensive storylines then this could well be for you, there's no real effort needed to follow these movies, you just watch them for the cheap laughs really... If you like slaptstick humour and aren't bothered about storylines then this could keep you happy for a while, although I would recommend that you not try and watch too many of the movies too soon, as they are so similar it may start to seem very bland and repetitive.
The DVDs featured in the boxset do have bonus features, such as commentaries and making of featurettes and trailers. Possibly a better alternative would be to rent these movies out individually and see if there are any particular one(s) that you enjoy and then buy that. It'd be cheaper than buying this, as in my opinion its pretty expensive and then finding out that most of the movies are so similar... their not the sort of movie that at least I would tend to watch particularly often, even just renting them might be enough but obviously thats up to you.
I'd recommend that if your into slapstick comedies and haven't seen them, that you watch them, or at least the first few (the first 2 at least I'd say) and the 5th one, as I personally think they are the best, by renting them but I wouldn't recommend buying the full boxset unless it happens to be on sale pretty cheap, as so many of the movies are so similar, I personally don't see myself watching most of the DVDs more than possibly twice . Just to make it clear, the rating is generally about the movies themselves but I'd say that the collection as a DVD boxset at the price I've seen it being offered for (over £30) is poor... the movies themselves individually are pretty satisfactory and you can get some laughs out of all of them but I wouldn't really bother with buying the full collection boxset at the price its sold for at the moment unless your a die hard Police Academy fan...
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![Police Academy - The Complete Collection (7 Disc Box Set) [1984] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78497250.jpg)
![Police Academy 1-7 - The Complete Collection [DVD] [1984]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/102300259.jpg)
by (84%):
by (16%):
23.12.2007 14:10
This was a very good review, you made a good comment about individual tastes, something many reviewer don't take into consideration, my own personal taste, even though I don't own the box set, I have actually purchased each film over the years, and are a huge fan of the Police Acadamy, and don't really have a particular favourite, never-the-less well done.
22.07.2007 15:44
LOVE the review :D
10.06.2007 12:56
I think the first one was the best and then they steadily went down hill from there.