Tymon Sutton
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Quiet Muffin
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Brian
I used to LOVE this movie as a kid but, seeing it again 20+ years later, it actually sucks. Up The Academy might have been ahead of it's time back in 1980, but it has almost nothing to offer today! Movies like Caddyshack and Stripes hold-up much better today than this steaming dogpile. No T&A. No great jokes except for the one-liners we've all heard a million times by now.I recently bought the DVD in hopes that it would be the gem I remembered it being. Well, I was WAY off! The soundtrack had only 2-3 widely-recognizable hits (not the smash compilation others had mentioned) and the frequent voice-overs were terrible. The only thing that was interesting, to me, was predicting what the character's lines were before they said them. Yep, I watched this movie that much back then! The only reason I am writing this review is to give my two cents on why this movie should be forgotten, sorry to say. :(
fxtheater9
This is bar none the most hilarious movie I have ever seen. Beginning with the four delinquents being sent off by their fathers to Wienberg Military Academy, a tone is set that steadily continues all throughout this goofball film, and it does not let up for a second.It's tough trying to describe this film; the humor elements are so spot on and brilliantly concieved that upon a first look it appears as nothing more than a stupid 80's teen lust comedy. But it is oh so much more than that! Fresh from the minds of those folks over at MAD Magazine, Up the Academy serves up a formula and style that I have never since seen duplicated by ANY of the "funniest" offerings to come out of Hollywood in years past. Basically the film is so full of infantile cornball material that you might guess that the writers were a couple of 14 year olds themselves. See this movie if you love to act "immature." A classic. *****
gridoon
A stale "misfits-in-the-army" saga, which half-heartedly attempts to be both surreal (the foreign subtitles) AND vulgar (the flatulence gags), but just ends up being a mix of many different kinds of humor, none of them followed very successfully. Barbara Bach, the Bond Girl from "The Spy Who Loved Me", has only two or three brief scenes. What a waste! (*1/2)
Miasmo
I first caught the movie on its first run on HBO in (probably) 1981 and being 15 years old I thought the movie was hilarious. I remember NOT seeing the Alfred E. Neuman depictions shown in the theatrical trailers. When MAD Magazine satired the movie and abruptly halted half way through with apologies from the "usual gang" for lowering themselves to satire such a piece of crap, I just assumed they were poking fun at themselves, which I'm sure they were, but to seriously find them ( and Ron Liebman ) so embarrassed to remove their names from any credits, I was quite surprised. Surely there are many worse movies to be associated with. Watching the movie on video now (at age 32) with the MAD references restored, I still get a kick out of it. And being a Ron Liebman fan (Hot Rock, Where's Poppa?) I think it's his crown jewel of performances (SAY IT AGAAAAIN)
