Is this what we’re just gonna do now? Just put out a sequel to something somewhere close to popular once, long ago? Does it matter if the popularity has waned? I know I’ve gone off on similar efforts, like the atrocious Dumb and Dumber To and the abysmal Zoolander 2, among others, and cash-in sequels haven’t had a strong track record with me (sounds about right). Gotta know how I felt when I heard not too long ago that a Super Troopers sequel would hit theatres seventeen damn years after the original.
And I was a fan of the original. Like many in my age bracket (somewhere in the upper 90s, apparently), I was introduced to the film in college, though sans weed (I would find out years later that the wacky tobaccy doesn’t do anything for me but singe the hair from my lungs’ tubules, so, yeah…), and I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was just the right combination of goofy drug humor, crass humor, and genre parody – not to mention an actual plot, as off-kilter as it was – to work on a number of levels. I rewatched the film last night, considering my tastes have certainly shifted since college, and I still found it to be pretty funny – not quite as funny as over a decade ago, but more than solid and enjoyable.
As such, my brain was conflicted when walking into the theatre, naturally on 4/20, brah (although my local haunt didn’t have the foresight to schedule a 4:20 showtime, tsk tsk).
We once again follow the boys of Broken Lizard – Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske – as they drift about following their firing from the Spurbury Police, directly following up the original film. Out of the blue, they’re invited by former captain O’Hagen (Brian Cox is back, too) and Governer Jessman (and so is Lynda Carter) to form a new highway police department just over the Canadian border. As it turns out, this area is about to be transferred to US sovereignty, and the boys will aid in the transition. Naturally, the locals aren’t too thrilled with the upcoming change and are understandably hostile to their new overseers, and the guys once again stumble onto a criminal scheme they need to sort out. Insert shenanigans (ooh, that’s a pistol-whippin’, eh, Cap?), callbacks, and gags aplenty. Stir.
Surprisingly, things are pretty close to the original. The Broken Lizard guys are still incredibly likable, the characters’ interpersonal dynamics work, and most of the jokes hit. Sure, there’s a bunch of callbacks and references to the original, including some meta-referential jabs, but the majority aren’t quite as forced as you might imagine (again, I was earnestly surprised). And, yeah, some of the humor doesn’t quite work, especially the forced Canuck accents (it is Quebec, after all) and the obvious Canadian-based jokes, and the narrative almost feels quasi-episodic at times, but the cast and characters hold things together just enough to make it work. It was nice to see the cast members from the original return, including Marisa Coughlan’s Ursula and Jim Gaffigan’s Larry Johnson (I don’t count it a spoiler if the trailers focus in on it), as well as some fresh cameos and bit parts from Kids in the Hall alum Bruce McCulloch and MadTV vet Will Sasso.
Is this anything all that special, or was lightning caught in a second bottle by the same folks? Not quite. Heffernan’s Farva has taken his obnoxiousness up a notch, Chandrasekhar’s Thorny is pushed to the background a bit, and Cox’s O’Hagen is cast as more of an elder statesman (emphasis on “elder”) than an authority figure. Moreover, the accents start to grate after a while (they’re just so fake and so forced…), and the plot is essentially a retread of the original. Still, the power of the cast is strong, and things are taken just seriously and just loosely enough to allow us to overlook the flaws. If you dug the original and want some additional adventures from the guys, this film is more than worthy of a look. I actually laughed at a modern comedy, one without a deeper emotional story surrounding it, so that’s something of a vote of confidence. Maybe not all extremely-delayed sequels are necessarily trash…what a time to be alive…hey, wassup, Frosticilus, howzit goin’?
Allusions of Grandeur 