Mad Magazine's Up The Academy is one of the worst comedies I've ever seen

1/2* (out of 5)

When I rent a movie on NetFlix I have three possible reasons. One, it is a new film that I either wanted to wait for or never got a chance to see in the theatre. Two, it is an older film I haven't seen that someone perceives as a classic, such as the American Film Institute. I've seen a lot of great older films, but there's about 90 years of movie history I have to catch up with. Or three, a movie came out during my youth that I always wanted to see, but was either too young to see (Rated R), couldn't find a friend to go with or it was out of the theatres much too quickly to catch up with. Other things came up over the years and I never did catch them. Now I have the opportunity. Sometimes they are jewels, but many times they are as bad as the critics said they were.

"Mad Magazine's Up the Academy" might actually be worse than the critics said it was. An answer of sorts to "National Lampoon's Animal House", this film was going to raise the stakes of the comedy magazine wars. How many young people heard of National Lampoon before that movie came out? I didn't. It became a must read after John Belushi's classic. Mad Magazine was much more famous to younger readers, but had lost some credibility in the Saturday Night Live era. This Up the Academy was aimed at that adolescent crowd and meant to give Mad back its irreverent crown. It didn't work. Not even close.

Joel Siegel reviewed the movie for Channel 7 News back then and I believe it had the dishonor of being released without a pre-screening for critics. A sign that the producers know how bad it is and hope to make some money before the critics tear it apart. You want to make a critic mad, force him to pay money for a ticket and see the film with the unwashed masses. You are almost certain to get a horrible review.

Siegel was a nice, easy going fella who understood the value of fun popcorn films. He hated Up the Academy and to show how bad it was, he mentioned how star Ron Leibman (Norma Rae, Super Cops), had sued to take his name off the credits. It worked. He doesn't have his name on the credits, but the suit brought more negative attention to him and the film. I always liked Leibman, I love Super Cops and he had a great detective show on CBS called Kaz that didn't last too long. If he hated his role in this film, how bad was it? I liked Mad Magazine, loved Animal House, loved snobs vs. slobs comedies and always wanted to like a comedy that critics hated. So this movie always stuck out for me as one I wanted to see.

So finally after 28 years, I rented this "comedy" and man am I laughing...at how bad it is. Oh Leibman is in it. He's in almost every scene as the cruel, tough Major Vaughn Liceman of the Weinstein Military Academy. Think Sgt. Ermey from Full Metal Jacket, but without any laughs, unintentional or not. Leibman is one of those actors who can make you laugh in a heavy drama because he has a natural, unforced acting style, but not here. Oh no, he tries hard with his Southern drawl and in your face attitude to be something he's not. He repeats "say it again" and you can tell this was supposed to be a big laugh line, as it gets beat to death throughout the movie, but never once even elicits a chuckle. Ralph Macchio plays a young recruit, a son of a Mafia don who refuses to learn the family business. He's so bad you wish a burning barn would fall on him like in The Outsiders. The other cast members are either terrible actors or decent actors who look embarrassed by their roles. Poor Tom Poston (Newhart, Mork and Mindy) must have really needed the money playing the floating gay instructor.

This movie deserved so much better. It was directed without a shred of humor by indie film maker Robert Downey Sr. (yes Iron Man's father, and now I know why his son took drugs); and written by Jay Tarses (a big writer for Bob Newhart, Buffalo Bill, and another great '80s sitcom Open All Night). They even have a person dressed as Alfred E. Newman in a general's uniform in the opening and closing sequences, but instead of being funny, he looks a like a disturbing creature from an Italian horror film. I gave this film a Half a Star only because it has some semblance of a forgettable plot that is followed through with a decent ending. Without that it has absolutely nothing going for it.

The Freditor