“I am all that is man!”

Justin’s rating: I’m not a cop, but I wear the uniform for fun!

Justin’s review: Freshman year of high school, I wore big reflective aviator glasses a lot. They were those big sunglasses that reflected enough solar light to power New Mexico on a wintery day, so what? I thought they were cool, and I was only about six years late with that one (a personal best for uncoolness).

The question is, if those mirrored aviator shades are not exactly stylin’, how come they remain the choice of state troopers everywhere? Are they trying to hide their red cyborg optical lenses, scanning our pathetic faces for shameful tears? Perhaps, but as Super Troopers postulates (good word! Andie’s gonna swoon tonight!), the glasses might be trying to hide a grin as much as a glare. It’s a Halloween mask for working adults, trying to make them look serious while they’re just as immature and juvenile as boys.

Our super troopers haven’t done much to deserve the designation of “super,” unless it’s a reference to how incredibly lazy they are. As Vermont State Highway Troopers, this band of jolly handcuff jocks are more concerned with fighting boredom than fighting crime. They mess with the mental states of speeders, they beat up a schoolbus full of kids (sort of), and they pull pranks on each other… all because it would be an incredibly dull movie without it.

This is our Police Academy for the oh-oh’s. The comedy troupe Broken Lizard — as in, “Hey dude, I think you broke your lizard” — skillfully crafts a masterpiece of fart, doobie and puke jokes as could possibly fit into a ninety minute run.

You’ll like some of the characters (including the loathed fat trooper Farva or the snarky new rookie) and the phrase “mother of God” was never issued with such deadpan hilarity as it is here. There’s some attempt at a serious plot, but since only about two people in this entire film take ANYthing seriously, it’s not worth the trouble. The best stuff comes from their wacky shenanigans — but be careful not to say that word in hearing of the captain!

I found Super Troopers to be much like some of my mother’s casseroles. Usually, there’s quite a bit of good stuff in there, but she was forever trying to slip in nasty bits of edible matter, like eggplant or zucchini, that made every bite a duel between friendly and foul.

Quite a bit of this movie is friendly; for instance, the opening sequence (which involves three stoners and their brush with insane cops) is as brilliant as anything I’ve ever seen on film. But some of Super Troopers is foul and, worse, boring. A chunk of the climax involves the cops being drunk, and I’d like to step up to the microphone and add that along with stoned characters, drunk people in movies are never, ever as funny as the scriptwriters think they are. So, you take the good, you take the bad, and there you got the facts of life.

Didja notice?

• Afganistanimation
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• How to drink syrup
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• Police use blue emergency lights in Vermont. Not red and blue, as seen in the movie.
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• Eating two bags of pot and one bag of shrooms might have adverse affects (look at the kid’s eyes during the whole scene… priceless!)
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