Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)

(Second or Third Viewing, October 2021) I’ll avoid expounding again how I once thought the Police Academy movies were the funniest thing ever as a 12-year-old — time moves on, and I finally get why it has received such bad reviews ever since its release. But at least this third instalment, featuring a “back to school” scenario for many of the characters being asked to help train another batch of recruits, is a step above the terrible second film. Oh, Police Academy 3: Back in Training has its problems: The jokes often scrape the bottom of the comedy barrel, there are far too many characters to do them justice, and the script is often laborious in how it sets up the jokes long enough to see them coming. But its anarchy can work in its favour: if you’re not happy with a character and their associated humour, just wait and there will be something else twenty seconds later. There’s also the fun of seeing mid-1980s Toronto being used very obviously (in a pre-CGI age) as a film backdrop—the skyline, TD bank, Younge Street address and Toronto Sun newspaper boxes being part of your “Toronto references” bingo card. I chuckled a few times (sometimes out of nothing but recognition at moments long forgotten) at Police Academy 3: Back in Training and that’s about all I could hope from a film that never aimed high to begin with.