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Airplane 2: The Sequel DIRECTED BY KEN FINKLEMAN RELEASED: 1982 Why's it so good? Zucker Abrahams Zucker were not on board for this one - Ken Finkleman, a Canadian writer who also penned Grease 2 that year, somehow bagged the gig - but this is underrated. It suffers in comparison to the original, sure, but given that Airplane! may be the funniest film ever, that's understandable. Still, this maintains the frenzied gag rate of its predecessor, as Ted Styker (Robert Hays) and Elaine (Julie Hagerty) find themselves aboard the first commercial space shuttle flight, bound for the Moon - and disaster! There're genius-level gags here - "Danger: Vacuum"; the courtroom sequence - without ever lapsing into the lazy parodies that mar so many modern spoofs. And just when you think you're all laughed out, Finkleman deploys his trump card: The Shat! His cameo as Moon Base commander, Buck Murdock, is better than all five series of T. J. Hooker.

How does it stack up to the original? It can't, but it's funnier than it ever had a right to be. Glaring error: The failure to bring back Leslie Nielsen. Still, his day in the sun was coming with The Naked Gun� GAP BETWEEN SEQUEL AND ORIGINAL: 28 MONTHS 50 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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