super-troopers-2-movie-review-2018

Super Troopers 2 (2018) Movie Review

You know what? If you like Super Troopers, then you might like Super Troopers 2. If you’re a die hard Broken Lizard fan, then you’ll probably find it uproarious.

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I enjoy Super Troopers just fine. It’s the best thing I’ve seen from Broken Lizard when it comes to feature length affair. And Super Troopers 2 is better than a film like Club Dread, which left me baffled.

I’ll frame it another way. In my sold-out screening of Super Troopers 2, there were upwards of five people who laughed riotously intermittently throughout. The woman next to me was fast asleep by the midpoint. In terms of enjoyment, I landed somewhere in-between.

I never fell asleep. I never laughed heartily, either. A chuckle here, a chuckle there. A number of those laughs that only involve the nose. You know, the ones where you blow some air out the nostrils, more as a form of recognition that the joke is understood than a genuine feeling of being tickled.

Relaying the plot of Super Troopers 2 would be reductive. There is no need. The basic premise follows the juvenile crew of highway patrol officers up to Canada to oversee the transition of a plot of land over to the United States. There is a plot in this premise—much of it involves the U.S.-Canadian culture clash and an uncovered smuggling operation—but that is not what Broken Lizard is preoccupied with.

No, the comedy collective behind the film cares more about the one-off jokes and running gags than the story. And honestly, that isn’t a problem. That the plot is never a concern makes the plot feel like a gag of its own. It just isn’t a good one.

The same could be said for much of the humor in the film. There are stretches where the comedy works well—I’m thinking of when the American characters don Mountie uniforms and perform a montage of pranks, or when they all try different pills confiscated from the smuggling operation as “research.” Mostly, though, the jokes simply fall flat.

This could stem from most of the jokes being about cultural stereotypes and accents. It could stem from the set pieces being, by and large, rather bland. Or perhaps this film is showing us comedic characters being driven past their potential.

 

Super Troopers 2: C-

 

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—Alex Brannan (@TheAlexBrannan)

 

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