This week’s film is “Super Troopers 3,” billed as the final climactic installment in the Super Troopers trilogy, but is it? “Super Troopers 3” once again features the Broken Lizard comedy group as a bunch of bored, male, upstate Vermont state troopers lacking frontal lobe development. The troopers are tasked with solving seemingly unrelated crimes involving vandalism to big industry maple syrup trucks and a new drug pipeline from Canada.
The group’s original membership is still intact, led by Jay Chandrasekhar, who also directs the film. The group first formed as a stand-up comedy troupe in 1989 when its members were all at Colgate University. Despite meager box-office success of just over $20M, their breakout hit “Super Troopers,” which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, was known for having one of the funniest opening scenes ever made. The film developed a cult following and went on to earn over $70M in video rentals and sales.
The comedy troupe’s humor is best described as if the unheralded characters from “Porky’s” became cops in a midlife crisis, crossed with the chase scenes of “Dukes of Hazzard” and the caustic wordplay from the Canadian sitcom “Letterkenny.” Jokes grounded in relentless verbal banter, like how many times can an officer mask the word “meow” in a traffic stop interrogation, and others that would make George Carlin smile, are the comedy troupe’s forte, but the witty humor is dragged down by moronic and crude hazing. Return cameos by Brian Cox as their former chief and original Wonder Woman Lynda Carter as Vermont’s governor produce a few of the better laughs.
So, on my ski trail rating system, “Super Troopers 3” earns a generous intermediate BLUE ski trail rating. “Super Troopers 3” knows what its audience wants and doesn’t disappoint, but there isn’t anything new here to attract new fans. If you didn’t love the first “Super Troopers,” you’re not going to appreciate this installment. Refusing to draw the curtain, the film credits feature a blooper reel with more laughs and teases of a 4th film.
“Super Troopers 3” is playing in theaters with a run-time of one hour and forty-four minutes. The film is rated R for sexual content, nudity, language, drug content and an unjustified rectal exam.
