Comedy

Super Troopers 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Super Troopers 2
  • IMDb: link

Super Troopers 2 movie review2001’s Super Troopers may not have broken the box office, but the comedy featuring the Broken Lizard comedy group had definite charm and has earned itself solid cult status over the years. Not nearly as much fun as the original, with a plot more convoluted than necessary, there are still laughs to be had for a film that struggles fighting off sequelitis.

17 years in the making (including relying on crowd funding to help raise money for the film), Super Troopers 2 brings back all the familiar faces of the former Vermont Highway Patrol. Having lost their jobs as state police since the last movie in an often-referenced tragedy involving Fred Savage (which sadly doesn’t offer nearly the payoff one would expect), the group is given a second chance when the Canadian border is redrawn around a single town and the U.S. needs a trained police force to step in.

Most of the sequel centers around our heroes struggling to get along with Canadians who didn’t ask to be Americanized and getting into juvenile pranks with the local Mounties (Tyler Labine, Will Sasso, and Hayes MacArthur) who they are replacing.

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The Cutting Edge

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Cutting Edge
  • IMDb: link

“Those are figure skates, pal.”

The Cutting EdgeThis week’s Winter Olympics inspired Throwback Tuesday post takes us back to 1992’s sports comedy The Cutting Edge starring Moira Kelly as ice queen Kate Moseley and D.B. Sweeney as retired ice hockey player Doug Dorsey who becomes her unlikely figure skating partner in hopes of winning an Olympic Gold Medal.

After an injury at the previous Olympics prematurely ended his hockey before it began, and with the tempermental Kate unable to make it work with any potential partners, the pair get thrown together for an unlikely Olympic run. Terry O’Quinn and Roy Dotrice round out the cast as Kate’s father and her figure skating coach.

The script by Tony Gilroy (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Michael Clayton, The Bourne Ultimatum) doesn’t stray far outside on box featuring and odd couple pairing who come together both on and off the ice. That said, there’s certainly some charm seeing two characters, both rough around the edges in their own way, come together. And while the skating is far from Olympic quality, it works well-enough to sell the story.

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Three Amigos

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Three Amigos
  • IMDb: link

Three Amigos DVD reviewToday’s Throwback Thursday post takes us back to the 1986 comedy which united Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short as a trio of silent B-movie stars mistaken for the western gunfighters they portray on film. In many ways the film proved to be a precursor to Galaxy Quest (or, as I like to call it, the best Star Trek movie ever made) which took the same premise of Hollywood stars and threw them into a world they had only pretended to live in. While Three Amigos is no Galaxy Quest, the zany comedy still holds up relatively well three decades later with the trio’s amusing antics, the accidental death of the Invisible Horseman, and a trio of original songs from Randy Newman.

Borrowing the basic set-up from Seven Samurai, a woman from a small Mexican village (Patrice Martinez) seeks the help of gunfighters to defend her home against the bandit El Guapo (Alfonso Arau) and his outlaws. Watching part of a film starring the western heroes, and believing them to be gunfighters, Carmen enlists the help of the Amigos who mistakenly believe they are being offered a role in a prestigious film with an in-famous co-star. Hilarity ensues.

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Still Pitchy, and Far From Perfect

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pitch Perfect 3
  • IMDb: link

Pitch Perfect 3 movie reviewScreenwriters Kay Cannon and Mike White bend over backwards the third time around to find a plausible reason to reunite the Barden Bellas for a final chance to sing and compete for glory. Given the glut of game shows which are music-based it would seem pretty easy to do. However, Pitch Perfect 3 goes old school and instead sends our ladies overseas to perform on a USO tour for American servicemen abroad. And, because everything in this series has to be about competition, the Bellas are pitted against the other bands competing for an opening act spot for prestigious musician DJ Khaled (playing himself).

Most of the cast return including the talented Becca Anna Kendrick, the awkward and all-the-sudden less-sexually-confused Chloe (Brittany Snow), the competitive Aubrey (Anna Camp), the younger Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), the odd Lilly (Hana Mae Lee), and the annoying Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) who gets her own bizarre subplot involving a long-lost father (John Lithgow) and gangsters… for the micro-audience of those waiting to see Rebel Wilson as a ninja? Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins also reprise their roles as commentators, this time tracking the group overseas for a documentary which would seem to have a very narrow target audience as well.

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Jumanji: Unwelcome is the Remake

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
  • IMDb: link

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle movie review1995’s Jumanji isn’t a great adaptation of the award-winning children’s book about a game which brings jungle chaos to the real world, but it works well-enough as a family-friendly adventure. Fast-forward to 2017 and Jumanji is reinvented as a video game, a concept which gives the sequel/remake the ability to cast big name stars playing kids trapped in the game. While the concept is initially interesting, nothing about the plot makes sense in the structure of a video game as the script quickly devolves into a hot mess.

The film begins in Breakfast Club-style when four students, a nerd (Alex Wolff), jock (Ser’Darius Blain), popular girl (Madison Iseman), and freak (Morgan Turner), get thrown in detention by a stern principal. Finding an old video game in the school’s basement, the foursome are transported into the world of Jumanji as the avatars they chose: the hero (Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson), his zoologist sidekick (Kevin Hart), a cartographer (Jack Black, basically doing Rob Schneider‘s shtick from The Hot Chick), and a dance-fighter (Karen Gillan). As in the original, the group will discover another player (Nick Jonas) trapped in the game.

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