Comedy sequels have a pretty terrible track record, especially the longer it's been since the original. Titles like Anchorman 2 and Dumb and Dumber To failed to re-capture the magic of the originals, and misfires like American Reunion inspire outright derision. So my expectations were basement-level for Super Troopers 2. While I discovered the original in college and enjoyed it, I was never the biggest fan of Broken Lizard's combo of dad jokes and dick jokes.
So color me surprised that this partially crowd-funded sequel isn't a complete and utter embarrassment.
It takes less than 15 minutes for the disgraced quintet of state troopers to get back in the saddle, patrolling a disputed patch of land between Vermont and Canada. The surprisingly hard-partying locals don't care too much for the newcomers, and an intense rivalry begins between the guys and the trio of Mounties (Will Sasso, Tyler Labine and Hayes MacArthur) they're replacing.
A lot of the jokes are low-hanging fruit about how Canadians use the metric system, love pancakes and hockey, and say "Eh." Anything that required more thought than this got a decent chuckle out of me. But most of the jabs rarely rise to that level.
There's also a drug-smuggling operation the guys run afoul of, as well as a tepid romance, but honestly that's too much plot for a movie that's at its best when the guys are just pulling pranks. A montage where they hassle drivers dressed as Mounties brings the most consistent laughs, so trying to keep this thing on the rails for 100 minutes seems unnecessary.
As with all comedies, your mileage will vary. And while I didn't find it consistently funny, particularly because Farva (Kevin Heffernan) is one of the most annoying characters to ever grace a movie screen, I find myself liking it the more I think about it. That's mostly due to little moments, like Rob Lowe as the hockey-goon-turned-mayor of a small town and Paul Walter Hauser (I, Tonya) as Farva's Canadian doppelganger. Those bits are well-deployed and aren't overused. Had Super Troopers 2 been more consistent, it could have risen to the level of dumb-cop classics like the Naked Gun series or Reno 911. But for now, it's destined to be another at-home hit for those already in its cult.
