A comedy with some howlers

WOLFCOP RETURNS TO SAVE THE DAY ... OR NIGHT

Sometimes a movie can’t help but live up to its billing. Other times it falls a little short. Another WolfCop, Saskatchewan writer/director Lowell Dean’s sequel to his deliciously zany 2014 original, is a bit of a letdown in that it does not, in fact, feature another WolfCop. Instead we get the same old WolfCop, the aptly named Lou Garou (Leo Fafard), working one day a month (twice if there’s a blue moon) in the tiny town of Woodhaven.

When he’s not transformed by the power of lunar light, he’s just regular ol’ DrunkCop, working with Chief Tina (Amy Matysio) and a couple of inept rookies.

Even half-smashed, he’s probably her most effective law-enforcement officer.

But weird things are afoot in Woodhaven. An entrepreneur (Yannick Bisson, who looks like a before-his-prime Ray Liotta) has bought the town’s defunct beer factory. His plan to open a brewery/ hockey arena suggests a fan of Strange Brew, while his name for the suds — Chicken Milk Beer — points to someone with a glass of eggnog in one hand and a French-English dictionary in the other. Oh, and he’s breeding some kind of alien creature.

Granted, the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it functions as a sturdy enough tree on which to hang a variety of kooky jokes, including Kevin Smith as the town’s mayor; Jonathan Cherry as a victim of the alien takeover; and a special guest star with a taste for synthesizers. Like the original WolfCop, this one is set squarely in the 1980s, from its They Live title font to Gowan’s Strange Animal on the soundtrack.

There are also a number of howlers — including a new slogan for the city of Regina — that I won’t reveal here because (A) that would be spoiling things and (B) your kids and/or parents might be reading this review. Heck, you might even be reading it yourself!

There are enough laughs to make Another WolfCop a good-enough successor, if not the equal of the first. Lightning seldom strikes twice, although a wolf might. •••

Another WolfCop opens across Canada on Dec. 1.

Saskatchewan writer/director Lowell Dean’s Another WolfCop is a sequel to his deliciously zany 2014 original.