Super Troopers 3 Is the Return to Form Broken Lizard Needed

I really wanted Super Troopers 2 to be great.

We waited 17 years for that movie, and while I enjoyed finally getting these guys back together, it fell a little flatter than I hoped it would. There were laughs, but it never completely recaptured what made the original Super Troopers work so damn well.

Super Troopers 3 doesn't fully either but at least it’s playing in the same ballpark now. This feels like a real return to form for Broken Lizard.

The biggest reason is still the chemistry between Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske. When these guys are just standing around busting each other's balls, it feels real. It reminds me of what happens when my friends and I get together. Somebody says something stupid, somebody else immediately jumps on it and before long everyone is piling on.

That's where Broken Lizard has always been at its best.

Not every joke lands. That's comedy. Very few comedies get every single swing across the plate. What matters is how many actually connect, and Super Troopers 3 lands considerably more of them than the second movie did. My wife and I were laughing out loud throughout the movie, and so was the audience around us.

That's a pretty good fucking test for a comedy.

It's also considerably better than some of Broken Lizard's lesser efforts like The Slammin' Salmon and Quasi. This actually feels like the group that made me love these guys in the first place.

The story revolves primarily around Thorny and Farva, with Farva preparing to marry Thorny's sister. Thorny isn't exactly thrilled with the arrangement and increasingly tries to interfere with the wedding, eventually leading to the kind of bachelor party that could probably only happen to these guys.

At the same time, the troopers are investigating a new drug making its way through the area while a new brand of corn-based maple syrup trucks that everyone hates are mysteriously being vandalized. It's exactly the kind of ridiculous combination of storylines you'd expect from a Super Troopers movie, and it gives the group plenty to work with without getting in the way of what we're really here for.

Thorny and Farva are obviously at the center of everything, and Chandrasekhar and Heffernan work really well together. Farva remains Farva, which is either going to make you laugh or make you want to throw him through a window. Probably both. Hannah Simone is also a great fit as Thorny's sister Sarita, who seems to be completely in lockstep with Farva's personality, making Thorny's horror over the whole relationship even better.

Steve Lemme's Mac gets considerably more to do this time around and really steps up, while Rabbit gets a fun running bit becoming jealous of Andrew Dismukes' Gen Z-ish rookie Coy Burns. Foster is probably the furthest in the background of the original five, although he gets one standout moment involving a police bomb robot that absolutely worked for me. It was also nice to see Ursula get a little more screen time than she did in the second movie, with her relationship with Foster providing a fun little side story throughout.

Brian Cox remains one of the secret weapons of these movies as the now-retired Captain O'Hagan who still can't seem to stop hanging around the station. Nat Faxon fits right in as new captain Todd Markowski, whose love of Indian culture may or may not have crossed a line somewhere, while Chace Crawford and Jon Rudnitsky have some fun as former pot-dealing brothers who turned their farm into the party venue hosting Farva's wedding.

What I liked most about Super Troopers 3 is that it didn't feel like Broken Lizard desperately trying to remind me that I loved Super Troopers.

It just felt like Broken Lizard letting themselves be Broken Lizard again.

The original movie is one of my comedy classics and is a hard act to follow. I'm not walking out of here saying the third one ranks up there with it, but it gives it the old college try.

After Super Troopers 2, I wasn't sure another one was something I really needed.

Turns out I just needed them to make a better one.