The decades may have passed, but the recipe for vintage ’80s sci-fi cheese has not been lost.
“Lazer Team” is a goofy riff on “The Last Starfighter,” or a “Pixels” without the Curse of Adam Sandler hanging over it. A cast of no-names and a story so clunky it grinds gears every time it changes scenes take nothing from surprisingly effective (cheap) effects and the odd laugh-out-loud one-liner.
There are aliens invading the Earth, and the planet’s only hope is a quartet of losers, inadvertently rendered our “champions” by an accident involving friendly aliens and their universe-dominating technology.
How’d this happen? Aliens let us know bad times were coming, that we’d need to raise and train a champion. So the U.S. military did just that, with buff Adonis, Adam (Alan Ritchson).
He was being sent this “suit of power,” with a brain-boosting helmet, invisible shield, laser cannon arm-piece and shoes the Flash would be proud to call his own.
But these rural rubes accidentally shoot down the supply ship and stumble into the pieces of the suit.
There’s big, dumb drunken Herman (Colton Dunn), who finds himself fleet of foot, even dumber Woody (Gavin Free), who turns brilliant when he dons the helmet of knowledge. So brilliant he starts talking with a British accent.
Zach (Michael Jones) is a punk, a brawling showboating jock trying to score with Mindy (Alexandria DeBarry), whose dad is a doofus deputy (Burnie Burns) and the fourth member of the quartet Zach names “The Lazer Team.”
When the Feds figure out what they’ve done, and that the weapons can’t be used by anyone else after they’ve imprinted on their new owners, they set to training the idiots to fight the incoming threat, the Gord.
The training involves a tennis ball cannon and lots of crotch-shots.
Not that the champion, Adam, takes this lying down. Not that the guys don’t WANT Adam to take this burden from them.
“Put’em on, Hitler Youth.”
Zach, the loose cannon, is entrusted with the attached arm cannon, and Hagan, the deputy, has the shield that could protect them all. If only they could learn to work together!
There are Ambiguously Gay Duo gags and electronic scorpions that turn friendly folk into alien automatons. An Eastern Bloc model (Irina Voronina) is passed off as the lead scientist in the project.
And a lot of stuff blows up in the best low budget tradition.
There’s not much to this, but stumbling across “Lazer Team” in the right state of mind at the right time of night wouldn’t be the most unpleasant way to sleep one off.
MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sexual material including references, language, action violence, teen partying and smoking
Cast: Burnie Burns, Colton Dunn, Gavin Free, Alexandria DeBerry, Michael Jones, Alan Ritchson.
Credits: Directed by Matt Hullum, script by Burnie Burns, Josh Flanagan and Matt Hullum. A FullScreen release.
Running time: 1:42
Movie Nation 
It was a low budget film what did you expect. They did their best to make the movie good.
tell me who are you I’ve never heard of you before i can’t find you anywhere elc but here so who are you to call any one no name + friendly aliens did you see the movie or just read a plot summery its a enjoyable movie the only ones that have seen other wise just want click bate ha how pitiful
Never having read a newspaper is nothing to be proud of, dearie. Indie films find talent where they may. I am reviewing a movie for the movie loving community, not digital media addicts. On the bigger screen, it felt small cheap, derivative and under-developed. Perhaps it plays better on a Droid. Or watched by one.
This dude also gave Star Wars a 50… Meanwhile spouting this elitist baby boomer crap is definitely making him a winner. Also giving insanely low scores to movies just to get more website traffic is immature at best.
Cast of no names… research the community responsible for this movie first and maybe the scenario involving the movie. But I can give you props for dropping a dig on Sandler.
A cast of no-names? Have you even researched the people in the cast? Millions of people know their names and watch their content. They have merchandise which sells out a few days after it releases. They created the longest running machinima on youtube.
You’re trying to redefine fame for the Youtube era, where “fame” is much is measured on a tiny, ephemeral scale. “No names” works for the purposes of those looking at a legacy art form like film. Talented and funny, a few of them. Otherwise, they’re “Blair Witch” famous. “No names.”
It seems unlikely that this reviewer actually saw the film, as he did not even bother to correctly name the alien race bent on Earth’s destruction (the Worg). This movie was a fantastic breakout into mainstream media by a digital content creator, designed to be funny and through that humor, enjoyable. It stands to reason that if an individual does not enjoy that same humor as was presented in Lazer Team, they will not enjoy the film. One of the lead actors, Gavin Free, said it best: they wanted to make a Rooster Teeth movie, but not “Rooster Teeth: The Movie”, and I believe that they achieved that feat brilliantly.
When the aliens’ name is not SPELLED out but merely pronounced, in a rush, by the cast, well, you take what you get. And yes, it takes a special kind of myopic, Youtube addicted nitwit to make an ad hominem statement like that based on some arcane piece of “knowledge” you think you have. It looks like a movie. I said as much. An underbaked but polished movie. But I suppose if your personal bar is set low enough…