Airplane II: The Sequel - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

“Doctor, can you give this court your impression of Mr. Striker?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t do impressions; my training is in Psychiatry.”
“Of course.”

Spoof comedy is a hard target to hit. You have to be in on the joke without overplaying your hand. It’s a mix of deadpan comedy and intentional slapstick that all has to play as straight as possible. The joke can't play like a joke. Even then, the dialogue isn’t always the joke; sometimes it’s a background object, something completely innocuous to the moment that delivers the laugh. In their time, the ZAZ team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker delivered their share of pitch-perfect spoofs with the likes of Police Squad!, the theatrical upgraded The Naked Gun Trilogy, and my personal favorite, Top Secret!. But it was 1980’s Airplane! that put them on the map. 

A box office success, Paramount put a follow-up to work in record time for Airplane II: The Sequel. While completely void of the original creative team of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, Ken Finkleman took on the writing and directing duties, reassembling most of the key cast members, including Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, with some extra room saved for Peter Graves. While a familiar plot and storyline, the upgrade to space travel provided room for a slew of spoofs of 2001: A Space Odyssey, while also leaving enough room for William Shatner and Sonny Bono to steal some of the spotlight. 

As I said, spoof comedy is a damned difficult genre to get right. It’s especially hard to capture the same lightning in the same bottle twice. Where Airplane II can fail to take off is when it’s trying too hard. When the jokes are so on the nose, the gag becomes a groan instead of a laugh. An E.T. reference in the opening credits is a good example of where this film can stray. However, most of the time it’s right on the money. If imitation is the best form of flattery, I’d suggest team ZAZ should be pleased with what Finkleman worked for this sequel (even though they’ve made their distaste for this film well known, claiming to have never seen it).

Bottom line, Airplane II: The Sequel isn’t nearly as funny as the first film. That’s a damned tough act to follow. However, there are enough gags and setups here that work well enough to be just as memorable and stand alongside the best bits of the original film. A nurse checking the oil of a patient behind Striker. Sonny Bono’s “life insurance” policy callback to Van Heflin in the original Airport, along with the Rocky XXXVIII poster and the stickers on his briefcase. Every moment of William Shatner is comedy gold. Sure, it’s not original and it’s not as good as the first, but it’s damned funny! Now more than ever, we need good spoofs. Maybe it’s a good time to dust off my old college screenwriting project, Airplane 3: The Remake?

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Airplane II: The Sequel takes off for its first 4K UHD release with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray from KLSC. A BD100 serves the 4K (even though a BD66 would have done the job for how much disc pace is leftover), and a Region A BD50 serves up the 1080p. The discs are housed in a standard two-disc case with identical slipcover artwork.

Airplane II: The Sequel follows a similar Dolby Vision flight plan as Paramount’s release of Airplane! In the three-film ZAZ Collection. When it looks great, this transfer offers up a significant visual improvement over the old Blu-ray, which barely scraped above the initial DVD offering. Similar to the Airplane! transfer, the optical transitions and zooms are the sticky spots. A good bit of smoothing appears to have been employed to nuzzle out the noisier film grain and artifacts of the optical processing. So those frames between the flashback effects can be a bit iffy. Likewise, the opening credits can be a little hit or miss. But once those elements are out of the way, the transfer looks spot on. Fine facial features and details look clean and clear. Colors are robust and healthy. Black levels are strong with some nice shadows. Perhaps not a format showstopper, but it’s a welcome upgrade for this title. 

On the audio front, we have KLSC’s standard offering of a DTS-HD MA 2.0 and a 5.1 track. Flipping between discs, this 2.0 track seems to be a new stereo reworking versus the previous Blu-ray’s 2.0 mono. They sound very similar, but not the same. I didn’t notice any difference in missing audio effects or incidental elements that’d suggest it’s a fold-down of the 5.1, but there’s a slight difference in timbre. The older Blu-ray audio was good, but I always thought it was mixed too high and could sound a bit shrill with some slightly tinny dialog exchanges. That’s not the case for this 2.0 track. It’s a very subtle change; most might not notice it, and I only keyed into it after doing a bunch of disc flips. As for the 5.1 option, it’s a decent surround mix, but it still mostly sticks to the Front/Center channels. Surround channels remain mostly active, but they’re picking up the background incidentals and are not really a prominent feature. Still, it’s a decent track that'll get the work Both options should serve fans well with clean dialogue and all the trimmings. 

Bonus features aren’t much to report beyond two very entertaining commentary tracks. This film never had extras before, so it’s nice to get a couple of things to plug into, even if it's not an exhaustive amount of content.

• Audio Commentary featuring Mike White of The Projection Booth Podcast
• Audio Commentary featuring Patrick Walsh
• Trailers

Airplane II: The Sequel is the follow-up we never needed but got anyway, and that’s a-ok! While the film may be content to remix a lot of old gags and fly some familiar sky, the great cast and some new gags and setups deliver another 85 minutes of hilarity. The returning cast is in terrific form, while newcomers find their time to stand out. The film lands on 4K UHD with a strong Dolby Vision transfer, two solid audio tracks, and a couple of new commentaries to bolster the bonus features. Recommended