You
can tell a lot about a country by the anxieties that surface in their genre
films. For instance, Canada is gravely worried someone might be tampering with
their beer. In the 1980s, Bob and Doug Mackenzie foiled an attempt to
contaminate Elsinore Beer with mind-controlling drugs. This time, officer Lou
Garou will challenge a villainous mastermind’s scheme to control humanity
through the newly launched Chicken Milk Stout. Fortunately, Garou is not just a
cop—he’s Wolfcop. He is also no stranger to alcoholic beverages in Lowell Dean’s
looney sequel Another Wolfcop (trailer here), which opens in
select U.S. cities this Friday and in Cineplex theaters across its native
Canada on December 5th.
Do
not let the title scare you. This is not like Teen Wolf Too, with a never previously mentioned cousin discovering
he too is a werewolf. This is true blue Lou Garou. He hasn’t changed much. He
still guzzles beer, scarfs on donuts, and turns into a wolf each full moon. He
also still carries a torch for his colleague (now boss) Tina Walsh, but her contemptuous
disinterest has evolved into Tracy-Hepburn-esque ambiguity.
While
wolfed up, Garou stumbled across a mysterious shipment intended for Sydney
Swallows, who is supposedly the town’s new benefactor. He reopened the mouth-balled
brewery to churn out Chicken Milk, but it causes some nasty side-effects. Garou’s
lowlife buddy Willie Higgins knows all about it. He was kidnapped and forced to
serve as their guinea pig, so now he has what you might call an odd growth
coming out of his stomach.
Another Wolfcop has all the
lunkheaded attitude of the first film, but there is at least ten times more
gore—all in good fun, of course. As Garou, Leo Fafard is just as endearing as
ever, in a degenerate, shaggy dog kind of way. Amy Matysio’s Walsh gets
considerably less screen-time this go-round, but she scores some of the biggest
laughs with her acidic one-liners. Jonathan Cherry’s shtick as Higgins gets a
bit tiresome, but Serena Miller steals numerous scenes as his lycanthropic
sister, Kat. Yes indeed, there is more red-hot wolf loving in Another Wolfcop.
If
only the DC Universe were as consistent as the Wolfcop franchise. It is not hard to see why Lou Garou is the pride
of Saskatchewan. These films have heart—and also blood and intestines. But wait
there’s more, including Kevin Smith playing the drunken mayor, at no extra cost
to you the consumer. Wildly entertaining, Another
Wolfcop is one of the rare sequels that darn near equals the first film.
Very highly recommended, Another Wolfcop opens
today in select U.S. cities and next Tuesday (12/5) in Canada.
(Poster:
Tom “The Dude” Hodge)