Airplane II: The Sequel

The first five or 10 minutes of Airplane II -- The Sequel are genuinely funny -- so funny I thought maybe this movie was going to work. That turned out to be a premature hope. The new inspirations quickly run out, and Airplane II turns into a retread, plundering the same situations and characters that made the original Airplane so funny. Read full review

Very hit and miss and not a patch on the first spoof but when a joke strikes home it'll have you going for a while. Read full review

I really like the sequel. No, I'll go one step further – I love the sequel. It's missing some major players, both in front and behind the camera. But really, Airplane II has some seriously funny gags. Read full review

Airplane II opens promisingly with a spate of hit-and-run gags, but the picture sags in the middle and lies flat for the last half-hour. Bringing on the rigor mortis is the appearance of William Shatner, playing the lunar-base commander who must guide Hays' troubled space shuttle to a safe landing. [14 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Even though most of the gags are too familiar or too dumb to be hilarious, Airplane II is too good-natured to be a serious irritant. Read full review

Granted the producers wanted to repeat their success, but taking the same stars and copying the same jokes merely makes for a thin rehash. Read full review

This sequel to AIRPLANE! is just as crammed with sight gags and sophomoric humor as its predecessor, but the novelty has worn off and the humor worn thin. A cast of mainly Hollywood has-beens and unknowns enjoys itself in this spoof of disaster movies, this time centering around a space shuttle headed for a crash. The various bits and cameos flash past without providing the laughs AIRPLANE! delivered. Read full review

It can’t be said that Airplane II is no better or worse than its predecessor. It is far worse, but might seem funnier had there been no original. Read full review

While Airplane II, proves to be a breezy and tolerably consistent follow-up to its successful prototype, a parodistic copy that relied less on jokes from the original might have seemed a shade fresher. [11 Dec 1982, p.C1]