‘Super Troopers 2’: The Broken Lizard Boys Are Back, as Goofy as Ever

This comedy’s 4/20 opening date is, as you might expect (particularly if you’re a fan of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe responsible for the movie), a stoner joke. But this non-indulger will attest that you don’t have to be high to find this long-impending sequel to 2002’s “Super Troopers” very funny indeed.

The Broken Lizard troupe — Kevin Heffernan (the stocky one who’s the butt of the fat jokes), Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske and Jay Chandrasekhar — shares writing and acting duties and defers directing to Chandrasekhar. I’d be lying if I said their maleness didn’t show. Their humor gets its slapstick from the Three Stooges, its non sequitur verbal mojo from the less-cerebral routines of the Firesign Theater, with a dash of Monty Python tossed in. The troupe’s bro rambunctiousness stems from “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” but the crude sexual humor, thankfully I’d have to say, mostly sticks to the mocking of male genitalia.

In this movie’s largely unimportant plot, the eternal adolescents reprise their 2002 roles as ineffectual Vermont state troopers, looking for a shot at redemption by overseeing an adjustment of U.S. borders into parts that had heretofore been Canadian.

When the guys aren’t razzing each other — a typical exchange goes, “Are you serious?” “Serious as a heart attack — and I should know, I’ve had two!” — they are mixing it up with the Mounted Police they’ll soon be supplanting. They also clash with a town mayor (played with abandon by Rob Lowe) who runs a hockey bar/brothel, and of course with their much-put-upon commanding officer, again wonderfully incarnated by Genuine Serious Actor Brian Cox, appearing to have the time of his life. The antics never out-and-out surprise, but they almost never fail to amuse.

—