The original “Airplane!” was a great spoof of the airport/plane genre but this sequel seems to be a rehash, which sadly spoils some of the good comedy that is featured in it.

“Airplane II: The Sequel” takes place in an unspecified future where army veteran pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) from the first movie is in a mental hospital (again!?) but he escapes in order to try and stop the launch of a space shuttle that will take people to the Moon to live. He’s too late to stop it but he manages to get on board where he has to save the passengers before the shuttle goes straight into the Sun.

The people returning from the original include Robert Hays, Julie Haggerty, Peter Graves and Lloyd Bridges (“Sea Hunt”) but sadly none are particularly good but they’re not horrible either. I wish Leslie Nielsen (“The Naked Gun”) had returned as well. William Shatner (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, “Shoot Or Be Shot”) is entertaining despite the fact he has a brief amount of screen time. Sadly there is no wacky inflatable autopilot like the first movie and instead you have a computer that reminds me of H.A.L. 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

“Airplane II” is a strange movie that has its fair share of good moments including how terrorists easily get through customs but an innocent, old lady gets searched and the bit where E.T. tries to make a phone call is hilarious. Despite the good moments that this film has, I feel that too many jokes and plot points from the first film are used and that it makes the film seem like they were running out of ideas so a few things could have been changed like why not this time have Ted Striker in a prison instead of a mental hospital? Also why have the same romantic drama between Striker and his girlfriend Elaine (Julie Haggerty) that we saw in the first movie? A few things could have been altered and then I’d have recommended this one without an issue.