Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Super Troopers 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 17, 2018

One of the promotional featurettes included on this Blu-ray as a supplement jokes around about Kevin Heffernan’s supposed “method acting” before dropping a series of F-bombs as Kevin himself demands that people go to Super Troopers 2 when it opens on 4/20/18. That choice of a release date certainly couldn’t have been a coincidence, since it’s my hunch that “420” fans who are “herbally enhanced” would probably be more in tune with this film’s sophomoric and fairly random humor than some of us boring, old fashioned (relatively) sober folks. Perhaps surprisingly, the seventeen year gap between Super Troopers is nowhere near the longest span between an original and its (first) sequel, though it’s probably salient to note that Broken Lizard, the comedy troupe who both wrote and perform in the film, had to resort to crowdfunding to get this project off the ground, since no studio was evidently interested in providing funds for a film that had long ago faded away and which was hardly a blockbuster to begin with (it made a sizable profit in part due to its absolutely minsicule budget). A “making of” featurette also included on this Blu- ray shows head honcho Jay Chandrasekhar and his acolytes watching the Indiegogo campaign rake in over two million bucks in around 24 hours (with several more million brought in over subsequent days), which evidently was enough to convince some private financiers to chip in the rest of the budget. Super Troopers 2 at least looks great, with lots of lovely scenery, and it features a glut of cutesy cameos that may recommend it to some folks, but the writing here is haphazard at best. Are there jokes that land? Absolutely. But there are also a ton of bits that crash land, just falling flat and leaving the performers to scurry about manically in some vain attempt to distract from the fact that the humor, kind of like the memory of a “420 adherent”, is pretty ephemeral.

It probably goes without saying that American — Canadian relations have hit a bit of a rough patch lately, and unfortunately Super Troopers 2 will probably not do anything to ameliorate the tensions, since its plot deals with a little burg that was supposed to have become part of the United States centuries ago, but which due to a surveying error has remained part of Canada. That mistake is supposedly about to be remedied, with Canada handing over the region to the United States, but with the sudden need for an American police force to replace the Mounties. In what may be the funniest thing in this film, albeit however unintended, the closing credits contain a disclaimer that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had nothing to do with this film and any depiction of them does not come with their imprimatur. Ya think?

As is perhaps predictable for a film written by a comedy troupe, there's a skit like ambience to Super Troopers 2 which features a lot of vignettes, some of which are reasonably funny and others of which just kind of sit there, languishing. The through line has a bunch of skirmishes between the Mounties and the troopers, but there's a subplot involving contraband that ends up providing supposed laughs as well. The film has a number of passingly effective cameos, starting with Damon Wayans, Jr. and Seann William Scott as troopers in a fantasy sequence that starts the film, and continuing on with Lynda Carter as the Governor of Vermont and Rob Lowe as the Mayor of the Canadian burg that's about to be handed over to the Americans, as well as bits from the likes of Jim Gaffigan and Fred Savage (who closes the film with a hoary but still admittedly hilarious sight gag).

There’s a geniality to much of the proceedings in Super Troopers 2 that allows it to elide some of the unevenness of the writing, and the performances are almost all uniformly winning. Cox is an unexpectedly winning comedic force throughout the film, and “method actor” Heffernan elicits some genuine laughs as prank victim Farva who ends up nearly paralyzed from a hotwired police radio. Super Troopers 2 never really achieves much momentum, but for fans of the first film who are willing to overlook some slow bits, it will probably deliver enough laughs to warrant checking out, even if it isn’t 4/20 or they aren’t “420”.

Super Troopers 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Super Troopers 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists the Arri Alexa as having been utilized to digitally capture the imagery, though it doesn't state at what resolution the DI was finished (I suspect 2K, but if anyone knows differently and can point me to authoritative data, I'll happily update the review). For the most part, this has the sleek, smooth and somewhat flat look that can tend to affect Alexa captures, but there's some curious softness in several scenes, especially some interior scenes with dim lighting. It does appear diffusion filters may have been used to give Lynda Carter some "old school" glamour, but a longer sequence in a strip club has some genuine deficits in fine detail as well as near posterizing at times due to the brash red lighting. Otherwise, though, the outdoor material pops quite nicely and fine detail on everything from the contentious mustaches some of the troopers sport to the bristly hair on a real life Grizzly (at least as evidenced by one of the supplements) that shows up at one point is precise looking. The palette hasn't been tweaked in any major way and looks natural throughout. Some of the special effects aren't especially convincing (look at the bus in screenshot 8).

Super Troopers 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Super Troopers 2 features an occasionally boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that derives a lot of its surround activity from the outdoor ambient environmental sounds, as well as occasional moments that employ things like motorcycles or police cars. A couple of raucous interior scenes, like the strip club sequence, also offer good placement of surround effects. On the whole, though, this is a somewhat limited sound design that tends to place most of the dialogue front and center. Fidelity is fine throughout and there are no problems with damage or distortion.

Super Troopers 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Super Troopers 2 (1080p; 39:50) is actually quite enjoyable as far as these EPK things go, with some fun behind the scenes footage and documentation of the Indiegogo campaign that launched the funding for the film.


• Extended/Deleted Scenes (1080p; 19:40) are watermarked and timecode captioned, just in case there are any pirates out there.


• Kevin Heffernan: Method Actor (1080p; 1:50) is soooo funny, at least for 420 types.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 3:24)

Super Troopers 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's no denying that Super Trooper 2 has some laughs to offer, but for me personally they were too few and far between to really generate any genuine hilarity. There are a number of effective little bits sprinkled throughout this film, but a more consistent delivery of effective punchlines without so much hammy acting and lunatic plot mechanics may have actually helped things, even if this would be "franchise" is probably built on hammy acting and lunatic plot mechanics. Fans of the first film will probably find enough here to like, and for them the good news is that technical merits are generally solid.