General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach

Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach is a 1988 American comedy film, the fifth installment of the Police Academy series, in which Commandant Eric Lassard travels to Miami Beach to receive a lifetime honor and accidentally becomes entangled with jewel thieves. It was directed by Alan Myerson, written by Stephen J. Curwick, produced by Paul Maslansky, and released by Warner Bros. on March 18, 1988.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	March 18, 1988 (United States), Warner Bros.; 90 minutes, rated PG¹
Director / writer	Alan Myerson; screenplay by Stephen J. Curwick, from characters created by Neal Israel and Pat Proft¹^•²
Lead cast	Bubba Smith, David Graf, Michael Winslow, Leslie Easterbrook, Marion Ramsey, G.W. Bailey, George Gaynes, Matt McCoy, Janet Jones, René Auberjonois¹^•³
Box office	$6,106,661 opening weekend on 1,700 screens, the top earner that weekend; $19,510,371 domestic total⁴
Budget	Estimated at $10.5 million in September 1987, later reported at $11.2 million¹
Critical reception	0% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 9 critics; Metascore 18⁵^•⁶
Filming	Principal photography began September 28, 1987 in Miami, Florida, including the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort¹^•⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Commandant Eric Lassard (George Gaynes) has reached the state's mandatory retirement age, a change that academy instructor Captain Thaddeus Harris (G.W. Bailey) and his subordinate Lieutenant Proctor (Lance Kinsey) hope to exploit to take his position. Before he steps down, Lassard is named Officer of the Decade and is honored at the National Police Chiefs' Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. He invites his former graduates, including Sergeants Moses Hightower (Bubba Smith), Eugene Tackleberry (David Graf), Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow), Laverne Hooks (Marion Ramsey), Lieutenant Debbie Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook), and the newly graduated Officer Thomas "House" Conklin (Tab Thacker), to attend, where they meet his nephew Nick (Matt McCoy), a member of the Miami Police Department.¹

Meanwhile, the jewel thief Tony (René Auberjonois) steals the Mac-Ankh-Ee Diamonds from the Museum of Fine Art with his associates Mouse and Sugar, hides the gems inside a camcorder, and flies to Miami to sell them to a buyer named Mr. Dempsey. On arrival, Lassard accidentally takes Tony's bag containing the stolen stones and, finding the camcorder at his hotel, assumes it is a retirement gift. When Tony tries to recover the diamonds at the hotel, the gems spill out; Tony takes Lassard hostage and barricades himself in the penthouse, then escapes by helicopter and boat into the Everglades, where the officers confront him at Dempsey's yacht.¹

Cast changes

The film is the first in the series without Steve Guttenberg, whose character Carey Mahoney had led the previous four entries. He was unable to appear because of scheduling conflicts with filming Three Men and a Baby, and Matt McCoy was cast instead as the new character Sergeant Nick Lassard.⁸ McCoy received an "Introducing" credit even though he had previously appeared in the 1985 film Fraternity Vacation.¹ Bobcat Goldthwait and Tim Kazurinsky, whose characters Zed and Sweetchuck had featured in earlier installments, also did not return.⁹

Production

Principal photography began on September 28, 1987 in Miami under the working title Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami, with a schedule of eight weeks on six-day work weeks.¹ Filming locations included the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach and South Beach Elementary School, which stood in for the academy campus.¹⁰ During filming, Michael Winslow accidentally broke actor Jerry Lazarus's nose while taking a swing at Lance Kinsey, and production was temporarily suspended in October 1987 when Hurricane Floyd hit southern Florida.¹^•⁸ The end credits thank the Miami-Dade County, Florida, Office of Film and Television Coordination.¹

Box office

The film opened on March 18, 1988 and grossed $6,106,661 from 1,700 screens in its first weekend, making it the highest-earning release that weekend ahead of Good Morning, Vietnam and the debut of D.O.A.⁴^•¹¹ It finished with a domestic total of $19,510,371, all of it earned in the United States and Canada, with no international release recorded by Box Office Mojo.⁴ The Numbers lists an inflation-adjusted domestic gross of $53,688,095 and a home video release on January 18, 1994 by Warner Home Video.¹²

Reception

Critical response was poor. The film holds a 0% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 9 reviews, with an average rated score of 2.60/10, while audiences gave it 33% on the Popcornmeter.⁵ It carries a Metascore of 18, and it is one of four Police Academy films with a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside Citizens on Patrol, City Under Siege, and Mission to Moscow.⁶^•¹³ Retrospective fan commentary has been more divided: one franchise retrospective ranked it fourth of the seven films and credited Stephen Curwick's script as the most cohesive since the original, while another review called the entry tedious and noted that the series had moved into fully cartoonish territory.¹⁴^•¹⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026