Being a huge box office hit, Airplane got its followup, but here’s the interesting part: Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker weren’t involved in it. Unaware that Paramount had the option for the sequel – with or without the consent of the trio – they felt the aviation humour vain was already drained and passed the chance to do the sequel. Paramount then handed the job over to Ken Finkleman who wrote and directed Airplane II: The Sequel. Zuckers and Abraham weren’t too happy about the situation and still claim not to have seen the movie to date.

Considering all this, Finkleman did a surprisingly good work here! Ok, so the sequel recycles the jokes from its predecessor quite a lot, but it also manages to come up with gags so good you could swear the original trio was behind them. Structurally it’s not as tight package as the previous one and some of the iconic deadpan style is unfortunately lost and replaced with people being silly, which feels less true to the first movie.

Airplane II: The Sequel is less iconic, less recognised movie that will always be left in shadow by its bigger brother. But even so it outshines most of the similar attempts by a long shot. If you liked the first movie and can cope with the fact that this is in a way an unofficial sequel, Airplane II is an easy one to recommend for watching.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 90%