911! My emergency is this bad sequel!
When I was in my early teens, I’ve enjoyed watching the first “Super Troopers” with my dad at a friend’s house. And I’ve been quoting: “Littering and…Littering and….Littering and…..” in my spare time. I didn’t have the temperament to see the 2018 sequel, but I had to watch it on my HBO Max account to prepare myself for the third entry. And Meow (and that’s a franchise favorite gag of its), I wish I stopped at the red light, because “Super Troopers 3” is a nasty, mean-spirited, and cynical sequel, on par with “Horrible Bosses 2” and “Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.”
Fans know that the Broken Lizard consists of the director Jay Chandrasekhar as the second-in-command Thorny, Kevin Heffernan as the obnoxious jerk radio operator Farva, Steve Lemme as the prankster Mac, Paul Soter as the calm trooper Carl Foster, and Erik Stolhanske as the rookie Rabbit.
In this threequel, Farva saves Thorny’s younger sister (Hannah Simone) from a car accident, and a few months later, they decide to marry. And because of their similar jerky behaviors, I think they deserve each other. But Thorny is the kind of brother who hates it when someone sleeps with his sister. And the fact that Farva is her betroth really grinds his gears. Like we haven’t seen that kind of humor before.
Like Chandrasekhar, Thorny comes from an Indian family, and that means Farva can bring on the stereotypes and his future-in-laws seem to be cool about it. Although I wonder how they would even approve of him, and I can assume he didn’t ask for their blessing if they meet for lunch. If Jack Byrnes met this guy, he wouldn’t need to give him a polygraph test; he would need to file a retraining order against him.
Many subplots pop in to try to distract us from the wedding, and none of them work.
Mac wants to drive the trooper’s new electric car across a giant river to prove he meets well with age.
Their former commander (Brian Cox) is now retired, but still resides somewhere in the building. And their new boss (Nat Faxon) is often belittled and accused of being a racist with Indian stereotypes. And both their sides are crass.
Foster is worried that his ex-girlfriend (Marisa Coughlan) is having a fling with the new rookie Coy Burns (Andrew Dismukes), who threatens to overshadow the former rookie Rabbit.
And there’s also a syrup company that makes people say: “F Moose Clock!” Someone is vandalizing their trucks, and it’s conceivable that two brothers (Chase Crawford and Jon Rudinsky) may have something to do with it, considering that the troopers ruined their marijuana deal back in the day. You know when weed was illegal, Thorny was saying: “Littering and…Littering and….Littering and…..” and the bags had the Johnny Chimpo logo on them.
Allow me to break down how low the comedy goes in “Super Troopers 3.”
The penis jokes kick in as Farva wears a hat with a fake appendage on it, and nearly hugs Throny in the bathroom. I just wonder if Farvo should have been in “Balls Up,” which had a condom that fits both the penis and testicles, and both these comedies fall flat.
There’s also an embarrassing sequence that splices the carbonite scene from “The Empire Strikes Back” and the oil can scene in “The Wizard of Oz.” And the frozen liquid is corn syrup. How the electric car is able to carry the frozen victim is beyond me, but at least I know this is supposed to be a comedy without logic. Just idiocy.
And the worst scene has Farva force feeding his future father-in-law (Iqbal Theba) a piece of beef, which is forbidden in the Hindu diet. And he ends up enjoying it and insults his traditions. And all this is supposed to be funny, because this threequel intends to lampoon both cultures. From my stand point, this is cruel and tasteless, and I have no idea what Broken Lizard was thinking of.
When the opening sequence features a Bollywood dance sequence, you hope this movie will reflect on those colorful values. But the more you watch “Super Troopers 3,” the more you want to place these guys under house arrest.
☠️ Poison for the Mind (0/4)