Lazer Team

Lazer Team (2016) is nothing more than mindless entertainment. While I can't call myself a current fan of Rooster Teeth, I did quite enjoy them when I was younger. I'm sure people who are actively following them and have grown to appreciate their sense of humor will find this film enjoyable. Still, the major problems lay within the script. Everything is played out and predictable, the attempts at one-liners are flat, and the story isn't even compelling. The special-effects are shoddy, some are fine while some are horrendous. This is a low-budget sci-fi flick, so that's to be expected, but the film relies on those effects too heavily. The acting is fine and everybody at least seems to be making an effort. The action is also pretty solid, but it suffers from being too foreseeable. Clichés are also something to be found throughout to point to where it just blatantly copies from other source materials. 'Lazer Team' is kinda fun but is also kinda annoyingly unoriginal.

Any film professors reading, here is a tip. You can do a final exam by making your class deconstruct Lazer Team frame by frame and identify the really good ideas and the zippy lines of dialog.

It is quite a challenge. The film runs almost two hours and there is no more than 10 minutes of quality material.

My fave: one of the "dumb and dumber" team removes an alien mind-control implant from the only female star and explains, "I was just removing the implant that made my girlfriend act like my ex-girlfriends." Actually the actor mumbles the line so you have to rewind to catch it. But that dialog is one of the keepers.

A Youtube production? In a way that is a good thing but virtually every other network, delivery system, channel, cable provider and postal worker who is now producing independently has done better work. So step it up Youtube.

'LAZER TEAM': Three Stars (Out of Five)

A sci-fi action-comedy flick; directed, co-written and co-produced by Matt Hullum. Burnie Burns also co-wrote, co-produced and stars in the movie; which also costars Gavin Free, Michael Jones, Colton Dunn, Alexandria DeBerry and Alan Ritchson. It's the first feature film from Rooster Teeth Productions (which specializes in machinima); and they raised most of the budget for the movie, from a successful Indiegogo campaign. The story revolves around four incompetent losers, who are trained to save the world; when they accidentally stumble across a special alien power armor suit. I liked the special effects, and some of the humor, but ultimately I found it disappointing.

We learn, as the film opens, that Earth received a message, from peaceful aliens, decades earlier. After decoding it, we learned that we are going to be attacked, by evil aliens, and need to train someone to fight them. So a man, named Adam (Ritchson), is raised since birth, to be the 'Champion of Earth'. He will be sent a special 'power armor suit', by the peaceful aliens, to wear in battle. The ship containing the suit, is accidentally shot down, by four losers though. They then each become genetically attached, to different parts of the armor. So Earth's new plan, becomes to train these losers, to be 'Earth's champions'.

The movie kind of reminds me of the cult classic comedy flick 'SUPER TROOPERS'; except more geared towards kids. The film especially seems aimed at 'video game loving teenagers'. For that reason, I think a lot of the jokes are too silly, and somewhat forced. A lot of the performances are pretty weak as well (with a few exceptions). There is some witty commentary, about social media obsession though; and how it effects everyone's lives. The film also has some pretty cool looking special effects (as I said before), especially for such a low budget movie. It's not a complete waste of time, but it's nothing special either.

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I wouldn't call myself a big Roosterteeth fan, but I do enjoy their Podcast and early RvB. But I feel this movie relies to much on RT's general fandom, as much of the film's fun factor is recognizing the personalities present from their other productions. But for anyone outside of that fandom the uninteresting plot, stereotypical characters and, downright terrible cgi make this movie incredibly boring and bad.

For me however the biggest disappointment is the humor present or I suppose absence of, in the film. A series of immature jokes of people getting hit in the crotch or banging a daughter that a 15 year-old would question the humor of, fall utterly flat through out.

Lazer Team is the best Fantastic Four movie of the year and one of the best action movies in the history of action cinema. Where the big comic book movie failed, this comedy actually has teamwork, cool action and it's fun. It's a terrific popcorn thriller and the best full feature- length film Rooster Teeth has ever created.

When the king Antareans warn us of an impending alien attack, Earth trains Adam (Alan Ritchson) his entire life to be our defender. The Antareans send down a power suit Adam is supposed to wear to fight the Worg, but the suit doesn't make it to Adam. Instead, inept cop Hagan (Burnie Burns), cocky jock Zach (Michael Jones), stoner Woody (Gavin Free) and has-been athlete Herman (Colton Dunn) get the suit in four parts, and they're literally stuck on them. So Adam has only a few days to train these losers to be the Lazer Team.

The plot is mysterious and suspenseful to get the audience's attention. The 3D visual effects and computer generated imagery are spectacular, realistic, it's like you're IN the movie (literally) and it;'s one of the best visuals and CG ever made in movies. It's even better than the animation of Yogi Bean and the Alvin and the Chipmunks film series. The 3D VFX is amazing as the 3D visuals of The Spongebob SquarePants Movie: Sponge Out Of Water and Ang Lee's 2012 adventure survival film Life of Pi. The visuals, however are not the only factor that make this film shine like a shiny laser.

The cast's performances were all well done, thanks to Matt Hullam's amazing direction. It includes two members from Rooster Teeth's Achievement Hunter, Michael Jones and Gavin Free. The main cast consisting of Colton Dunn and Burnie Burns along with Michael Jones and Gavin Free truly make this team the brightest team to face the wrath of mankind's darkest hour. They truly stand out in their roles and undoubtedly make one of the best Fantastic Four protagonists to ever exist and expressively prove that their triumph was no fluke but amazing and excellent performances. The supporting cast is also very good. The director chose an excellent cast and the wisecracks aren't too reliant on cringe or slapstick, enough to make the audience laugh and also feel tense during the climax.

The character development is also quite interesting as director Matt Hullam has these four dolts/idiots substantially rise in rank from losers to famous worldwide heroes. Although they make an amazing and excellent team of heroes in science fiction, the plot however seems to be somewhat based from the 1996 film Independence Day as in that film and this film has the human heroes defeat the alien invasion. Nonetheless, it still deliverers the audience with a dazzling and entertaining popcorn thriller.

They manage to get some real heart-touching moments in there too, especially with a father/daughter story between Hagan and his daughter Mindy (Alexandria DeBerry). The four members of Lazer Team don't get along for some real reasons and the film allows them to have their moments too where they try to bond and be best friends. Adam has some understandable animosity towards the Lazer Team stealing his suit as well, so he gets to have real character growth.

A few of the early jokes really don't land, and even go so far as to explain the joke to the audience (the difference between a drunk tank and dunk tank is explicit). When Zachary gets tazed and falls in the pool, I thought it would be funny if the whole pool ended up zapped, but that's not the joke. I thought he would get electrocuted. I also wondered what happened to Gavin's British accent as he sounds American without his helmet.

The mood starts when the training begins. Lazer Team is one of the most critically, commercially and financially successful films of Rooster Teeth, having funded over $2.4 million in a month through the Indiegogo campaign. It has made it's first world release on September 24, 2015 at Fantastic Fest, USA and it's second Canadian premiere in Toronto, Canada on October 16, 2015 at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and has received largely acclaim from critics, which has truly amazed me. It will soon have it's European premiere at Film4 FrightFest on October 24, 2015 a week before Halloween 2015.

Overall, The Rooster Teeth team has no problem expanding from Red Vs. Blue to a full length feature. The story does everything it's supposed to: establish the characters, build them up through training montages, and escalate the threat. Everything looks right. The military and football scenes in particular look legit. Director Matt Hullum and cinematographer Philip Roy use really elegant camera moves to make it look epic, except for a few shots that are intentionally shaky. The visual effects are supposed to be a tad cheesy, but they're plentiful and really spectacular as they blast aliens, run with super boots and go invisible with stealth.

In conclusion, this film is slightly flawed at a few parts but overall quite fascinating. It's a job well done to Director Matt Hullam, the rest of the Rooster Teeth team and the visual effects team and this film deserves a five out of five stars. Terrific camera movements, spectacular and realistic visual effects and computer generated imagery and excellent performances from the lead cast: Michael, Gavin, Colton and Burnie make this film a terrific popcorn filled entertainer. It truly deserves a sequel. I wonder what Lazer Team 2's lot will include but whatever it is, it should live up to it's prequel and become a faithful and entertaining sequel like Rio 2 and Sponge out of Water. Colton, Michael, Gavin and Burnie should reprise their roles and I hope Matt Hullam will return as director.

Rating: 5/5 stars