Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol

Sorry, but they definitely ran out of ideas. More of the same. Same gags, same everything. For fans only.

Some original characters still survive.

This is where the series started to go south. Jokes are starting to get stale, like really how many times are we going to milk that Blue Oyster Club gag... lol. but there are some great bits in it still. Most memorable is the Hightower voodoo scene. Also fun seeing Tony Hawk do tricks, pretending to be David Spade...

The laughs keep on coming as Police Academy roles out a fourth installment, Citizens On Patrol. When Commandant Lassard institutes a new program to enlist the citizens’ help in fighting crime the Police Academy opens its doors to a new group of misfits. G.W. Bailey returns to the series as Capt. Harris and brings back some of the charm of the first film. The cast also features appearances by Tony Hawk, David Spade, and Sharon Stone. But the plot still follows the series formula, delivering all of the same old jokes and action beats as the others. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but on the whole Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol is an entertaining screwball comedy.

'Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol' is a lousy fourth entry to this franchise. I've not truly liked any of these flicks admittedly, but the last two did do some things well enough that I could see the potential. This one is more akin to the original, it feels aimless.

I guess that is to be expected this deep into the series, hopefully it's not a sign of things to come for me across the next three releases. Any 'pluses' that I do have for this is anything I've 'praised' across the prior flicks, which is pretty much just the pleasantly returning cast. Sharon Stone and (a debuting) David Spade make for interesting newcomers.

The plot isn't anything close to being fresh, it's basically the last three movies rolled into one; those ones are hardly anything memorable themselves, so that's an obvious problem. I will say that the ending here is at least visually interesting, if still not the real McCoy.

Lastly, I know I keep saying it but I seriously don't know how I'm not finding Bobcat Goldthwait's Zed overtly annoying yet. Sure he is a little so, especially as he gets a needless extension of screen time on this occasion, though the character continues to bring a mini smirk or two. Beats me!