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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Full Frame
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital Mono
  • French: Dolby Digital Mono
  • Commentary - English: Dolby Digital Mono
  Subtitles
    English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, English - Hearing Impaired, Romanian, Bulgarian
  Extras
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Audio commentary
  • Featurette
Police Academy - The Complete Collection
/Warner Home Video . R4 . COLOR . 0 mins . Warner Home Video . PAL

  Feature
Contract

The Police Academy series epitomises ‘popcorn’ comedy; switch your brain off, sit on the couch, have the occasional laugh, then get on with your life. Of course, by ‘series’ I really only mean the original movie since the remainder of this series is a typical rehashed cash grab by movie studios capitalising on the success of a classic.

Even Steve Guttenberg, who you could argue had his career made by the first installment, was smart enough to jump ship by the fourth, ironically when GW Bailey got sucked back in to do the final three in the series.

It’s not all bad of course, and the endearing characters that survived the full run such as Michael Winslow’s excentric audio trickster Larvell Jones and the David Graf’s gun crazy Tackleberry make it almost worth watching them all again. Almost.

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
Contract

Video and audio quality varies wildly among the movies in this set and while the original Police Academy appears to have received some attention the remainder of the movies look and sound like they were cobbled together from a variety of sources, as summarised below:

Police Academy
Presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and enhanced for widescreen displays. As mentioned above the transfer for this movie seems to have received the most attention of all the movies in this set and while the usual problems associated with a movie of its era are present the picture is acceptable overall.

Police Academy 2
Another 16:9 transfer in the original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 and another adequate transfer for Their First Assignment, if a little marred by grain and film artefacts.

Police Academy 3
The quality of the third instalment is slightly better than the second and Back in Training retains the 16:9 transfer with the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and a marginally better transfer than the previous, probably due more to it being a recent production (even though there was only one year between the two)

Police Academy 4
Citizens on Patrol marks a departure from the previous 16:9 and 1.85:1 transfers and gives us a full frame transfer. The technical specs for all these movies show 1.37:1 as the original negative ratio which means that the theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 is most likely a matte. All techno babble aside, what this means is that for some reason we no longer get a 16:9 widescreen transfer for this disc, which is probably highly annoying for anyone with a projector which doesn’t handle 4:3 pictures very well (like me).

Police Academy 5
As with the previous disc Assignment Miami Beach is presented with a 4:3 transfer and no Steve Guttenberg.

Police Academy 6
Still no Guttenbergefacts, City Under Siege marks the return of the 16:9 transfer and 1.85:1 aspect ratio, hooray!

Police Academy 7
Mission to Moscow shows a complete absence of a Guttenberger but the 16:9 transfer and 1.85:1 aspect ratio stays, but who cares because after seven movies in this series nobody is watching any more anyway.

Unfortunately all the movies in this set are only presented with a 1.0 mono soundtrack. A one channel audio track is bound to sound flat and dull and this is certainly no exception but since none of the Police Academy movies are special effects extravaganzas they don’t really suffer from not having the full surround treatment. The important aspect of the soundtrack is the dialog and while hardly reference quality the mono audio track does an adequate job of making the dialogue audible at most times.

As the name implies, Police Academy – The Complete Collection is a box set containing all seven Police Academy movies. The special features in this set consist of a short featurette on each disc focusing on the relevant movie along with a theatrical trailer for the same. All the featurettes are presented in full screen with a two channel soundtrack, which is adequate for the content mainly consisting of retrospective interviews with cast and crew along with some behind the scenes footage from the production of the movie.

The featurettes are as listed below, total running time of all the featurettes combined is close to a bit over an hour. Not an amazing package of extras for a 7 disc set but there is definitely some value in this herd for fans of the season particularly with the first featurette.

Behind Academy Doors: Secret Files Revealed (30:23)
Accidental Heroes: The Best Of (6:28)
All Washed Up: Floating Memories (8:13)
Remembering a Lofty Investigation (8:28)
Mistaken Identity: Case Re-opened (7:41)
Unholy Alliance: A retrospective (7:56)
Underneath the Mission (10:16)

The only other special feature in this package is the Commentary on the first disc. Featuring the Producer of all seven movies, Paul Maslansky, Steve Guttenberg (Mahoney), GW Bailey (Lt. Harris), Michael Winslow (Jones) and Leslie Easterbrook (Callahan) this commentary acts as a sort of reunion for the major players in the movie and is worth the price of the box set alone. The cast and Producer obviously have a lot of history and their friendships are obvious. This commentary is certainly funnier than the actual movie even if it is punctuated by some moments of complete silence. Conspicuous in his absence is David Graff (Tackleberry) who died in 2001 (this warranted a mention in the commentary).

Police Academy was quite a success when it was first released, enough so that it spawned six sequels even if none of them generated the level of interest as the original (and the best). While this box set represents pretty good value for seven feature length movies, the value of the actual content on six of the discs is debatable and some readers may be better served by just buying the original alone and forgetting the rest exist.

For rabid collectors (myself included) the box set is probably the best option for no reason other than to have the full set and a fancy box.


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  •   And I quote...
    "Seven movies for eighty bucks, too good to be true? Of course it is, this is one movie and six coasters."
    - Chris Hore
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-676A
    • Projector:
          BenQ PB6100
    • Receiver:
          Yamaha RX-V995
    • Speakers:
          Wharfedale Diamond
    • Centre Speaker:
          Wharfedale Modus
    • Surrounds:
          Wharfedale Diamond
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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