Airplane II: The Sequel

Airplane II: The Sequel. 1982 Paramount Pictures
Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, Chad Everett
Also Starring: Peter Graves, Chuck Connors, William Shatner, Raymond Burr, John Vernon, Stephen Stucker, Rip Torn, Sonny Bono, etc.
Director: Ken Finkleman
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A lunar shuttle called the Mayflower One is being rushed to launch. A ground crew chief known as The Sarge (Connors) doesn't like what's going on, but is content to defer to the airline's management. One of Mayflower One's onboard crew is Elaine (Hagerty), who has long left Ted Striker (Hays), and is now engaged to another flight crew member Simon Kurtz (Everett). Peter Graves is also onboard as Captain Oveur.

Ted Striker has been committed to an insane asylum after he was declared mentally incompetent in a lawsuit filed after the lunar shuttle crashed during a test flight where Ted was the test pilot, although it's insinuated that the lawsuit was used to silence him because Ted already knew there were problems with the shuttle that made it unsafe. Still haunted by the events in "The War", where he lost his entire squadron, and learning that Mayflower One will be launched to the moon, Ted decides to escape the asylum and get a ticket for the flight, which he buys from a scalper.

Mayflower One's onboard computer, ROK, rebels, sending the ship towards the sun, and kills the pilots in self defense, and it's up to Ted Striker to (again) take charge and save the shuttle. That's when the air traffic controller Steven McCroskey (Bridges) notifies Ted that a passenger named Joe Seluchi (Bono) has boarded the flight with a bomb concealed in a briefcase, intending to commit suicide so that his wife could collect the insurance money. Ted confiscates the bomb from Seluchi (who boarded the wrong flight by accident) and uses it to blow ROK up.

When the flight is back on its proper course to the moon, Commander Buck Murdoch (Shatner) takes over. He hates Ted thanks to the events in "The War", but still helps land Mayflower One on the moon. Ted and Elaine fall back in love, and get married at the end of the movie. But there's still a little matter of Seluchi getting his briefcase back...

Stay tuned for Airplane III because "that's exactly what they'll be expecting us to do!"

This one isn't as good as the original movie, and truthfully, most sequels aren't, but it's still a funny movie. Highly recommended.

P.S. The real highlight of both Airplane films in my opinion could very well be Stephen Stucker, who played the over the top characters Johnny Hinshaw in the first movie, and Jacobs in the second one. Sadly, Stucker died in 1986 of AIDS, and I honestly think that had he lived, he could've been a major star.