Review of Lazer Team (2016) by Sarah N — 28 Jan 2016

I wanna start off with saying that I don't know much about Rooster Teeth. I've seen a handful of Rage Guit episodes (who hasn't?) and most of RvB. But that's where my knowledge of these guys ends, so I'd like to believe this review is pretty objective.

On to the actual movie.

I went to the Indianapolis showing at Studio Grill Theatre (which was awesome) with the mindset you'd have if that classmate you talked to a couple times had something to show the class; I wasn't expecting a lot, but I was inclined to be pleased if only from the loyalty of someone who in general supports YouTubers and the blanket geek culture. And on pretty much every aspect of the film, I was pleasantly surprised.

The premise is simple; a cop, a dumb jock, a burned-out athlete, and a hick end up with the four pieces of a super suit necessary to save humanity from an impending alien attack. It's a little bit situational comedy with a sci-fi slant, and the characters are pretty easy to spot cliches, but what makes Lazer Team so enjoyable is that it knows that we've seen this kind of stuff before. One scene in particular, a conversation between the cop and the jock (who is pursuing the cop's cheerleader daughter) was an excellently written subversion of the typical "over-protective" dad trope; at worst, it deserves a "Not A Bad As You Could Have Been" award and at best it points out the extremely fine line between having someone's best interests in mind and now allowing them to make their own decisions. It knows when to be self-aware and subvert itself, it knows when to play things straight, and it approaches that balance of smart and stupid that reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I think Lazer Team's biggest strength is that, by being crowd-funded, it comes off as very much a for-the-people, by-the-people kind of film. Which isn't to say it's strictly for the millennial crowd, either - on my way out of the theatre, I caught a brief conversation between a man in his 60s praising the film to his wife - but it instead has a very distinct, unapologetic feel to its writing. It takes tropes so old and over-used that they're worn out and breathes new life into them, reminding you why people loved them in the first place. It's not profound, it won't change your life, but it'll still give you some great laughs; if you go into it knowing it's no Citizen Kane.

It's stupid and crude when it wants to be, refreshingly subversive when it needs to be, and is an excellent palette-cleanser from tired, homogenized big-budget Hollywood films that try to pander to everyone. If you liked movies like Galaxy Quest, Monty Python, The Hangover, and The Avengers this could be the film for you.