The sequel (obviously) to the original classic Airplane!, itself a spoof of the film Airport, an airplane disaster movie in the 1970's.
Featuring all the original principal cast, but sadly none of the original producers (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker), the sequel plops crack veteran Ted Striker on the first lunar shuttle.
The shuttle isn't exactly up to par, you see; the Boys on the Board demanded budget cuts and the result is a ship with lots of cut corners and shoddy workmanship. Ted figured this out as a test pilot, but was railroaded out of the company and committed to an insane asylum. Escaping just before the shuttle takes off, Ted makes it aboard to avert disaster.
When the ship starts to fall apart, the real pilot turns into Jell-o (literally and figuratively), and abandons the ship ("that's right, Elaine, premature ejection!"). The ship's computer goes insane and locks the ship on a collision course with the sun. It's at this point when things couldn't possibly get any worse that Sonny Bono emerges with a bomb (conveniently sold at the airport), threatening to destroy the ship.
Ted averts this crisis, and gets the ship back on course for the moon, but they're not out of the woods yet; Buck Murdock (played by an unusually funny William Shatner) must talk them safely down to the lunar base.
Most definitely goofy and off-the-wall, and just as silly as the first Airplane!, this movie is one of the rare sequels that matches (or beats) its predecessor. It's so farfetched, you never expect it to be serious (or to even make any sense), and this lets you enjoy it on a more primitive, absurd level like it was intended.
The producers and writers of the first Airplane! movie, regretably, chose not to participate with the sequel. They felt they'd said all they wanted to say with Airplane! Watching the original movie on DVD, listening to the commentary, you can hear some obvious animosity towards the sequel by the original's makers, even though they claim not to foster any. It's a real shame; with their hands in it, Airplane II: The Sequel would have been even funnier.
Still, this is one of the few movies today that can still make me fall out of my chair with laughter. Filled with cameos, sight gags, pratfalls, bad puns, and senseless violence, this movie delivers laughs in a steady torrent.