Super Troopers 2

After 17 long years the sequel to ‘Super Troopers’, released in 2001, hit theaters last week. Anyone that has not seen the original should get on that right meow.

‘Super Troopers 2’ has been in the works for some time but really got going when the comedy team Broken Lizard, the hilarious group behind the original as well as ‘Beer Fest’ and ‘Club Dread’, decided to give up on getting studio funding and raised the money themselves in 2015. As some may remember they raised the money within just a few days on the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo; they eventually surpassed their funding goals allowing them to shoot more scenes.

This movie saw the former Vermont State Troopers turned town cops Thorny (Jay Chandrasekhar), Rabbit (Erik Stolhanske), Mac (Steve Lemme), Foster (Paul Soter), and Farva (Kevin Heffernan) having been fired from the Spurbury police force after a mysterious incident involving actor Fred Savage and are now scattered throughout Vermont when they get a call from now retired Captain O’Hagan (Brian Cox) about a fishing trip right over the border in Canada.

When they meet up with O’ Hagan they are surprised to find him and Vermont governor Jessman asking them to once again take on the role of Vermont Highway patrolman in a town being turning over from Canada to the U.S. due to some long unknown boundary marker error. The gang excited to get be cops again agree and begin to work with the local Canadian Mountie unit they will be replacing.

As expected, the long Canadian town, as well as the local Mounties, are not fans of the new American state troopers seeing them as idiots. Once they begin patrols of the area they quickly find a stash of drugs, counterfeit phones, and other items legal in Canada but illegal in the U.S. making them a big problem once the switchover occurs. Thinking back on their past days catching local law enforcement up to no good, and some big pranks pulled on them by the local Mounties, they assume they will not have to look to far to find the source of the drugs. However they may be relying too much on their past experience.

As is the case with most sequels I cannot say ‘Super Troopers 2’ is as good as the original ‘Super Troopers’ however it is still a good sequel. The Broken Lizard guys brought back a few old favorite jokes and changed a few up to help make the old fans feel a sense of fun and nostalgia but did not overly rely on littering the movie old lines.

Some things were overplayed however; the Farva is a fat idiot gag was pushed to the limit. One more Farva gag and it could have been too much but luckily I think they kept it just on this side of funny before it became a cliché for the movie. Also I think we all expected a good amount of jokes on Farva.

Overall ‘Super Troopers 2’ was hilariously good. It brought back a few old gags but mixed in enough new material to not ruin the series and make everyone in the theater I saw it in laugh out loud many, many times.

I give ‘Super Troopers 2’ four stars.

 

‘When We First Met’

Streaming services lately keep producing original content faster than most people can watch it however they are mostly producing original shows though and not as many movies. I am starting to see a few new streaming service made movies though, such as the most recent Netflix original ‘When We First Met’, which was released last week.

Noah, played by Adam Devine (Workaholics, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates), is a goofball, who works as a piano player that falls in love with a girl named Avery, played by Alexandra Daddario (Texas Chainsaw:3D, Baywatch), at a Halloween party in 2014. Trying not to come on too strong Noah misses his chance to kiss her all night even in an old-fashioned photo booth at the bar he plays at causing her to quickly think of him as her best guy friend.

Exactly three years later Noah is attending Avery’s engagement party with to an overly nice guy she met the day after she met Noah. After he gets super drunk at the party Noah ends up at the bar sitting in the old photo booth wishing he could go back in time and make Avery fall in love with him.

The next morning Noah magically wakes up in 2014 on Halloween day. Once he gets over the shock he knows he has to do whatever he can to make Avery fall in love with him. Using everything he has learned about her over their friendship he predicts everything she is going to say causing her and her friend Carrie, played by Shelley Hennig (Unfriended, Teen Wolf), to think he is a stalker and beat him up. The next morning when he wakes up in 2017 he thinks it was all a dream and finds that now he does not have any relationship with Avery and travels back to 2014 again to try and woo Avery. As one can predict Noah continues to mess things up in 2014 causing him to mess up his 2017 relationship with Avery every time. He can never seem to get it right. No matter how much one tries to escape fate it will always catch up with them; even if they continue to go back in time using a photo booth.

When I first saw the trailer for this movie a few weeks ago it looked good. I could tell it would not be the most amazing movie but I was not expecting that much from a Netflix original movie. This movie was a little better than what I expected though. As expect it is a goofy time travel movie where someone continues to go back in time and mess things up. I have seen this idea used in many movies, i.e. ‘The Butterfly Effect’ and ‘Happy Death Day’ and, while it is amusing to watch people think time traveling back to one moment again and again will solve their problems only to find it only makes things worse and worse, it always goes one back in time scenario too far. That is exactly like what happened in ‘When We First Met’.

However this comedy actually makes the time travel back in time to fix things story work. It was entertaining while also being stupidly funny making this movie worth a watch on Netflix.

Devine was impressive in this movie. I have only seen him in comedy roles playing a goofy guy but he has perfected this character over the years and made it more of a grown up goofy character which was what his movie needed.

I give ‘When We First Met’ three stars. Here is the trailer.

‘The Greatest Showman’

Movies, of now and yesterday, have something in common with the old-fashioned circuses; people watch them to be entertained. ‘The Greatest Showman’, currently in theaters, depicts the life of the P.T. Barnum, a creator of the Barnum & Bailey Circus which later became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

This movie depicts Barnum, played by Hugh Jackman (X-Men, Logan), as a  poor tailor’s son that grows up desiring respect in the 1800s. As a child, following the death of his father, he is seen living on the streets eventually finding work and marrying the wealthy girl of his dreams, Charity, played by Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea, Marilyn). Despite Charity telling him she does not need to be rich like her family Barnum wants nothing more than to give her and their daughters everything in the world.

After being laid off Barnum starts a museum of oddities featuring wax figures and dead animals with little success. His own daughters tell him that he needs something more alive and more spectacular. Taking their advice he finds the people who society has cast out, those who look and are different; those who were referred to as “freaks” in early circus days.  Among them are a singing bearded lady, a dwarf general, African-American trapeze artists, the tallest and fattest men, and many others. While the show brings in instant success Barnum is not satisfied as the upper crust of New York society still does not welcome him and his family. This strong desire for acceptance may send him, and everything he has worked so hard to build, crumbling down.

‘The Greatest Showman’ was a sensational musical that will make many miss the days of going to a traveling circus and seeing the animals, the swinging trapeze artists and the other mystical acts. While most circuses, including the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, have taken their final bows and gone belly up that feeling of seeing a circus is hard to beat. This movie showed a not so modern circus that we are not exactly familiar with more of a focus on “freaks” but it still captured that feeling of wonder and excitement that came with a circus.

Left out of the movie was much of the background of Barnum’s life and much of the negative aspects surrounding the circuses of the 1800s but I think it made up for that with the showmanship infused into the film. Also the songs in this musical film were not overly showtuney making it more enjoyable for all.

Jackman stunned as Barnum. He was very convincing as a man who produced wonder and excitement by any means possible, even by faking it. Based on his previous work in the X-Men movies I was surprised.

I give ‘The Greatest Showman’ four and a half stars. It is now in theaters.