REVIEW: Super Troopers 2 is a sequel to a cult comedy from long ago that doesn’t repeat the feat

REVIEW: Super Troopers 2 is a sequel to a cult comedy hit from long ago that doesn’t repeat the feat of the original. True believers are the only ones who should show up here.

SUPER TROOPERS 2 (MA15+)

Rating: two stars (2 out of 5)

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers)

Starring: Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Kevin Heffernan, Erik Stolhanske.

Doesn’t cop it so sweet on the repeat

Super Troopers 2? What the heck was Super Troopers 1, I hear you ask?

Come on now. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t remember the original. It was released here more than 17 years ago, after all.

For those who have forgotten - or perhaps weren’t even born - Super Troopers was a low-budget comedy about a quintet of hell-raising highway patrolmen up Vermont way.

(From L-R): Kevin Heffernan as "Farva," Jay Chandrasekhar as "Thorny," Erik Stolhanske as "Rabbit," Paul Soter as "Foster," and Steve Lemme as "Mac" in the film SUPER TROOPERS 2. Photo by Jon Pack. © 2018 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

These five flame-outs were forever messing with the minds of passing motorists, and playing ridiculous pranks on each other.

The original Super Troopers cost a million to shoot, grossed about twenty times that amount at the box-office, and has continued to attract an intensely devoted cult following ever since.

So intensely devoted, in fact, that the same cult following has literally wished Super Troopers 2 into existence via the magic of crowd-funding.

Beholden to giving the people what they want (and pre-paid for), the stars of the sequel (a reunited sketch-comedy troupe once known as Broken Lizard) indulge in the same brand of likeably lowbrow antics as before.

Stars of film Super Troopers 2 with a grizzly bear named Whopper L-R: Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske

Unfortunately, the lads often look a little too old to be indulging in this stoner-friendly brand of fare, and the lack of any killer fresh material becomes a buzzkill once the nostalgia wears off.

The plotting is admirably absurd in parts, centred on a mapping error which means an area of Canada is about to be returned to US control, and the Super Troopers boys must ensure the handover goes off without a hitch.

They fail spectacularly, of course.

Originally published as REVIEW: Super Troopers 2 is a sequel to a cult comedy from long ago that doesn’t repeat the feat