Inexplicable Movie Review: Airplane 2

I've been in an inexplicable mood lately, hence the second of these reviews in a week. Pardon my French and what not, I suppose. Anyway, similar to my review of Gremlins 2, let me talk about another sequel that doesn't get all the credit it deserves: Airplane 2.

While the original is a great film, I'd argue that the sequel is just as good, yet nobody has seen it. Most of the humor comes from two standout sequences - A courtroom scene in the early to middle portion, and the last 15 minutes, which has an incredible, and I daresay perfect, cameo. Of course, since it is an Airplane movie, there are tons of gags scattered throughout.

The courtroom scene is presided over by Raymond Burr, a.k.a. Perry Mason, and features a couple of great scenes. (The full scene can be, uh, seen here.) One is the questioning of a witness about what happened over Macho Grande. And like the first movie, there is some Jive talk. Other good portions are the questioning of Ted Stryker's psychiatrist and the calming down of a hysterical witness.

The other great scenes all deal with an incredible cameo - William freakin' Shatner. It's easier to just provide the link to the last nine minutes, which have all of his awesome scenes, and another cameo by the Starship Enterprise. It is Shatner at his over-acting best.

Other good cameos are Sonny Bono as a crazy bomber, Lloyd Bridges as air traffic controller Steve McCroskey, Peter Graves as Captain Clarence Oveur, Chuck Connors as the Sarge, Steve Stucker as a super gay air traffic controller, and Rip Torn as Bud Kruger and President Reagan.

I think the Airplane! movies maintain their humor because all of the actors are playing the material completely straight. All of the humor is derived from people acting completely oblivious to the humorous situations they're in; it is the opposite of Leslie Neilson's later, shitty spoof movies that are painfully trying to make jokes. Things are funnier when everyone is acting as if they are completely serious.

Controller #3: Get me Steve McCroskey!
Controller #2: Are you kidding? Ever since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, he's been completely senile!
Controller #3: Yeah, but what about McCroskey?
Controller #2: About the same as Reagan.

Airplane 2 picture taken from here.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Gremlins 2

Two of the great supporting cast of Gremlins 2:
Christopher Lee and Hulk Hogan

To switch things up a bit, I thought I'd focus on a movie that I actually enjoy, but one that doesn't seem to get much love from anybody else - Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Much like Escape from L.A., Gremlins 2 works as a sequel because it goes in the opposite direction of its predecessor. It shifts from a horror movie to an Airplane-like spoof.

In Gremlins 2, the setting of the film has shifted from a small town to New York City. Billy, the cad married to the ultra foxy girl-next-door type played by Phoebe Cates, finds the runaway mogwai Gizmo on the streets one day. He tries to protect him, but of course, calamity ensues as Gizmo is exposed to water, and the resulting evil mogwais eat after midnight. They run amuck in Clamp Tower, which is run by an eccentric billionaire - think Jimmy James from Newsradio, or the portrayal of Carter Puderschmidt and his buddies in Family Guy.

While you don't need to have seen the original to enjoy the sequel - I hadn't - you do notice a few more inside jokes if you've experienced both. Also, watching the first makes you familiar with the rules of mogwais and gremlins: They reproduce if exposed to water or eat after midnight, and bright light and sunlight can kill them. This "reproduction" is kind of gross, as a warning, with gremlins "popping" out of gross, stretchy bubbles out of each other's backs.

In the original, the gremlins were played up for horror and suspense purposes, but in Gremlins 2, the focus is definitely on slapstick and humor. This is especially evident when the gremlins takeover the genetics lab of the tower, and start guzzling weird potions and injection each other. One becomes super intelligent and is voiced by Tony Randall, and then delivers soliloquy and civilization and understanding.

While the leads are mostly there to play the story "straight", much like the lead roles in Airplane, the supporting characters are hilarious. Standouts include Christopher Lee as an incredibly mad scientist, his twin research assistants, the aforementioned Randall as the voice of the brain gremlin, a Dracula impersonator and kids' show host who serves as a news broadcaster, and Clamp himself.

The movie also loves to break the fourth wall, spoofing itself and other movies. Leonard Maltin reviews the original Gremlins in a fake production of his own TV review show. The middle of the movie is interrupted by gremlins, who are then chased away by (depending on the version you're watching) Hulk Hogan or John Wayne. Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig have skits to open and close the movie. And the Clamp Cable Network, who Dracula-guy works for, has several other spoofs, like a Julia Child-esque chef who uses a microwave primarily.