Lazer Team Review
Never judge a book by the cover is the old saying. One that I’ve ignored to my peril on numerous occasions. Judging a film by its title, short clips and/or poster(s), whilst not as snappy, can bring about the same problems. Did it here?
The premise of Lazer Team won’t surprise or amaze you, it’s something that’s been done before, a lot, in variations granted. Four losers, a cop — Hagan, played by Burnie Burns (Red Vs Blue, Ten Little Roosters) who is also the writer of the film, Woody, played by Gavin Free (known mostly for his slow motion cinematography previously and as one half of YouTube’s The Slow Mo Guys), Zach, played by Michael Jones (Red Vs Blue) and Herman, played by Colton Dunn (Parks and Recreation, Superstore) manage to bring down an alien craft with a massive firework. Inside the craft is a suit, helmet, boots, and two gloves, that were destined for Earth’s defender, Adam, played by Alan Ritchson (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) but, when the guys put the items on, they become genetically matched to the items and must take Adam’s place in the battle for Earth.
The story is more of friendship and coming together as it transpires Hagan and Herman have previous, the latter now can’t stand the former, and Zach is dating, or trying to at least, Hagan’s daughter, played by Alexandria DeBerry (Hoover, Mission Air).
As the team, dubbed Lazer Team by Zach, have to defend the Earth from an impending fight with an alien, the suit having been sent by a different friendly alien race to help, they are trained by Adam and the military. Zach has the laser glove, Hagan the shield glove, Woody the helmet which is making him more intelligent and Herman the boots which mean he can run at high-speeds. They must learn to work as a team if they are going to defeat the visiting alien whilst also fending off a group of army soldiers who are taken over by alien technology.
Most of the above is irrelevant if I’m totally honest. It’s not a great story, it holds together reasonably well if you don’t think about it too much and luckily the film moves at a reasonable pace most of the time to stop you doing just that.
The acting is pretty wooden, the directing, by Matt Hullum (Red Vs Blue), is inoffensive (point the camera at the thing that’s talking/moving/being talked about) and the dialogue is clichéd at best.
The special effects and costumes are ok, I mean they would have been a lot worse had the movie only got the $650,000 sum they were originally asking for on Indiegogo. As it happened they got $2,480,421 from 37,497 backers making it the most funded film campaign on Indiegogo ever.
The movie is extremely silly, juvenile, not hysterically funny but funny at times and will just about past muster if you’re really stuck for things to watch on a Sunday afternoon.
Originally published at OC Movie Reviews.
