Common Sense Media Review
Sex and drug jokes abound in lowbrow comedy.
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Why Age 17+?
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Super Troopers
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 5 parent reviews
Based on 11 kid reviews
Kids say this movie is a hilarious comedy that, while entertaining, is definitely not suitable for younger audiences due to its explicit content including nudity, drug use, and foul language. While some appreciate its unique humor and cult classic status, others criticize it for relying on overused comedy tropes and lacking positive role models.
- humorous content
- explicit themes
- not for kids
- cult classic
- mixed reviews
Summarized with AI
What's the Story?
SUPER TROOPERS feels like the kind of movie five college buddies who didn't want to go to law school would dream up after a week-long marathon of smoking dope and watching John Landis movies. In fact, that's pretty much how it came about. Five recent Colgate graduates who created a comedy group called Broken Lizard wrote and star in it, and one of them directed it. The result is a sort of Animal House crossed with Cheech and Chong with a touch of the 1970s Erik Estrada television show CHiPs. It's a slob comedy story of the rivalry between a group of Vermont highway patrol officers and the local police. It escalates from taunts and practical jokes to a struggle over turf and then to a struggle for survival. The members of Broken Lizard play the troopers, whose idea of "cheeky" hijinks includes making bets about how many times one of them can use the word "meow" while giving a motorist a speeding ticket, or donning a hippie wig and racing the other troopers to the Canadian border. In classic college fashion, drugs, alcohol, humiliation, and sex provide most of the subjects for humor.
Is It Any Good?
This endeavor by the Broken Lizard troupe falls somewhere in the middle range for raunchy comedies, both in terms of bad taste and hilarity. Super Troopers makes lots of gross jokes that are cheerfully politically incorrect but not terrifically funny, either, recalling movies (American Pie) and comedians (Tom Green) who have done it better. Here, and in those uniforms, the lead actors look more like they're auditioning for a local franchise of the Village People than anyone who might know how to hold a radar gun on a speeding 18-wheeler. But director Jay Chandrasekhar and one or two of the others clearly have fun on screen, and it occasionally reaches the audience.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the humor in Super Troopers. Is it funny to see authority figures behaving like total fools? Why or why not?
What other movies can you think of that make fun of authority figures?
How do you think the film portrays the troopers' behavior? Reflect on how watching this film feels today, when tales of police brutality and abuses of power are more frequently reported than when the film was released.
Movie Details
- In theaters : February 15, 2002
- On DVD or streaming : August 6, 2002
- Cast : Erik Stolhanske , Jay Chandrasekhar , Steve Lemme
- Director : Jay Chandrasekhar
- Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
- Genre : Comedy
- Run time : 100 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : language, sexual content and drug use
- Last updated : July 23, 2026
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