Up the Academy

A teen comedy that does not quite rise to the level of that age group, this uninspired story features Ron Liebman as the Major, a sadistic instructor at a military school. Ralph Macchio (before his 1984 hit, Karate Kid) and other teens of every stripe suffer through the indignities heaped on them by ...more

Mad Magazine's attempt at a comedy film fails to capture the madcap spirit of the magazine and instead comes off like a third-rate knockoff of National Lampoon's Animal House. The script by t.v. comedy vets Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses lacks the specific details or inspired characterizations necessary to make the story take off, instead settling for a string of tired comedy cliches. One might have expected former underground-film darling Robert Downey to really stick it to institutions like ...more