Broken Lizard comedy continues this month, and this week, we’ve got the one that started it all. Shot on the illustrious campus of Colgate University (home of the Raiders with such bright and shining teeth), Puddle Cruiser is the film that started it all, hailing alllllllll the way from merry ol’ 1996. First movies of individuals and groups tend to earn nostalgic places in the hearts of audiences. After all, what better way to remember someone than when they first started. I mean, who doesn’t love Christina Ricci as that adorable little Wednesday Addams, or Will Smith as a HI-larious fish out of water? Of course, that doesn’t mean that we can avoid the elephant in the room: is the movie any good, though?
Hit the jump and you’ll see the answer for yourself.
The hey-penny synopsis of the plot of Puddle Cruiser: Broken Lizard goes to school. Okay, that’s probably being a bit more bare-bones than what’s needed, so let’s see what else I can do: Grogan and Matt get caught red-handed stealing food from the college cafeteria, but Felix calmly climbs out a back window and gets away. Later, at a party with his friend, Zach, Felix catches sight of Suzanne and is immediately smitten. But not only does Suzanne have Traci, her jock boyfriend from home, hanging around, it also turns out that she’s defending Felix’s moronic friends in the school’s case against them. As if this wasn’t enough trouble, she’s also trying to get them to turn in their unknown accomplice. Wacky hi-jinx ensue!
Puddle Cruiser abounds with mediocre acting, flat dialog, and dull/obvious attempted gags. Maybe this film just hasn’t aged well, because some of the comic attempts come up so short it’s astounding. A few of these scenes are interminable, with characters trading instantly forgettable banter, which never seems to end. On other occasions, 10 minutes of screen time will roll by without anything I can even detect as possible joke transpiring. Are the actors going for deadpan humor? Or are the performances overrun with apathy? It’s tremendously difficult to discern at times.
As said earlier, Puddle Cruiser is the first full-length independent feature from Broken Lizard. It did well at film festivals but failed to get picked up for distribution. The film was made on a minuscule budget and it shows at times. The film simply isn’t nearly as funny as Broken Lizard’s latter efforts and the delivery isn’t there for the jokes that could have potentially been funny. The only scenes in this film that merit viewing over and over again are the Hefferman/Soter scenes. The courtroom scene in particular is one of the funniest bits the group has done in any of their films. All the Broken Lizard boys seem to have a natural sense when it comes to comedic acting, especially Steve Lemme in the lead role, but just about every other performance seems unnatural and stilted, especially lead actress Kayren Butler. Her “angry” scenes were laughable, and not in the good way.
Puddle Cruiser is an impressive first effort by Broken Lizard considering its budget and how hard they worked to try and make it a success. That same dedication to self-promotion and film-making helped with Super Troopers, but that film’s success also came about because it was a great comedy. Puddle Cruiser, however, wasn’t. Sure, I will openly admit that there were a few moments that made me chuckle, but for the most part, I’d venture to guess your co-workers or classmates provide a better brand of humor on a daily basis than what the movie offers. I’d recommend this to the same crowd that I did for Club Dread, but less so.