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The team from Red Letter Media, a small group of some of the best online movie critics and comedians finally get together to put the superhero movie through the wringer. “Space Cop” is a mixture of superhero movies, crime noirs, and classic Golan Globus stinkers where our hero is a testosterone junkie prone to shooting a lot of people and then asking questions later. In this instance we follow the futuristic space cop from 2058 who spends his time shooting down bad guys and royally destroying his city in an attempt to halt operations from disgruntled criminals. When he’s home, he indulges in an addiction to hot dogs and beer.
After being demoted by his boss (A hilarious cameo from Patton Oswalt), Space Cop is sent in to the past, which is modern times, to investigate a mysterious plot being enacted by an alien race. Space Cop is teamed up with Ted Cooper, a cop from the 1940’s who was cryogenically frozen and hilarity ensues as both out of time cops try to uncover the devious plan from behind the shadows. “Space Cop” is a fine movie, but sadly that’s about all it is. It’s a fine comedy and satire and really nothing more. Red Letter Media are just brilliant when it comes to satirizing bad movies, and poking fun at mainstream Hollywood so it’s sad that “Space Cop” is pretty much a hundred minutes of jokes that hit or miss. For all intents and purposes, Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans as the titular Space Cop seem to have a good time playing mismatched cops assigned to solve a case involving theft of gold, a secret organization inventing a new type of metal, and a lot of leads in to random strip clubs and whanot.
While “Space Cop” has a good time with the noir, crime, and superhero cliches, director Jay Bauman is a lot more interested in displaying the interplay between Stoklasa and Evans, both of whom usually deliver comedy gold in their web show on their site. Stoklasa and Evans are hilarious most times, delivering a different approach to their characters’ predicament, and how they handle various shady characters. While Space Cop is in the present, unimpressed and ready to knock heads, officer Ted Cooper is astonished that a lot of his values and rituals aren’t accepted. I particularly laughed aloud whenever he wasn’t allowed to casually smoke in many of the film’s key locations. That said, Bauman spends way too much time on the pair, sacrificing the narrative and the momentum to show the duo improvising and adhering to the absurdity of the secret scheme.
I also found the maguffin involving the gold a pretty weak plot point, even in spite of how it ultimately develops by the finale. “Space Cop” wasn’t a complete wash, though, as it certainly kept me watching until the hilarious closing credits, and shocked me at how Bauman and Stoklasa could paint such a deliriously violent and vicious character and still leave us wanting a sequel as he literally runs through the credits. Stoklasa, Bauman and Evans are a bang up comedy team with their own brand of weird, wild, and often laugh out loud comedy, and I think somewhere down the road they’re capable of delivering an instant comedy classic. “Space Cop” is a neat, if flawed, mash up of genres reserved for select movie fans that appreciate this kind of comedy, or have been loyal followers of the Red Letter Media team for years.
