But it isn’t dry, stale humor. It is new, brilliant, an addition to the Trooper franchise. It is as if this was a contemporary rendition of Super Troopers, done very well.
By Sean David Hartman
With the rise of the reboot occurring in Hollywood, one has a constant fear of a potential Star Wars fiasco. Either the meowvie goes Force Awakens and relies too much on nostalgia; or it goes Last Jedi and is so different from the source materials that its entire canonicity is challenged.
Thankfully, in this Goldilocks analogy, Super Troopers 2 was “just right,” balancing out the classic hits and nostalgic references with new humor that is just as silly and ridiculous as you would expect coming from Broken Lizard.
I’m certain many people felt confident that Broken Lizard would be successful in this venture, having created it themselves. But there was always a change this movie would have gone the route of Dumb and Dumber Too, which also had the original cast and writers engaged in its creation and still was a disaster.
Luckily, Broken Lizard proved that they can meowster the reboot by keeping the formula but creating a new story.
The now disgraced Troopers are stuck working odd jobs under the leadership, somehow, of Rod Farva. The gang, with all hope lost, get a sudden chance at redemption after a reinterpretation of boundaries puts parts of Quebec under US, not Canadian, jurisdiction. The Trooper team, who are still somehow infamous 16 years later (also Lynda Carter is somemeow still Governor of Vermont, but that’s beside the point here).
Now if you were thinking during this movie, you may question the realism of such a scenario. I like to think that somehow President Trump was so tough that Prime Minister Trudeau just gave in. But regardless, the Troopers are now required to engage with the new American population, who, in an ironic turn of events, now take a nativist, Canada First mentality.
In fact, if there is some form of allegory, it seems to be that America is great, and all these foreigners who are so afraid of Americans need to realize how amazing we are.
The movie is filled with some of the classic stupidity, with antics and shenanigans between the Troopers and the Mounties (playing overexaggerated quasi-offensive versions of the stereotypical Quebecois), an unexpected enemy, and Farva…well, being Farva.
But it isn’t dry, stale humor. It is new, brilliant, an addition to the Trooper franchise. It is as if this was a contemporary rendition of Super Troopers, done very well.
The only complaint I would have was its fast-paced nature, moving quickly as if rushed to finish. Though the jokes were funny, the storyline seemed to be put together in a manner of minutes, with quick beginnings, middles, and ends, tying up the entire feature quite rapidly.
This may very well be the best option for a film such as this. As we are so used to a 2+ hour special feature, it is easy to see why a 90-minute comeowdy seems off. But it is for the best. For a movie like this to succeed, it cannot go overboard. Super Troopers 2 provides a perfect balance for everything. I would suggest seeing it as a matinee or other inexpensive options, but as a movie, it is certainly the cat’s meow.
Sean David Hartman is a reporter for the Central Florida Post, covering both politics and entertainment issues. He is a political operative who describes himself as a “bleeding-heart libertarian”. Hartman is autistic and bipolar and supports the neurodiversity movement and protecting the constitutional rights of those with mental health conditions.
