South Park: Bigger, Longer Review

by "Nathaniel R. Atcheson" (nate AT pyramid DOT net)
July 3rd, 1999
South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (1999)
A Capsule Review by Nathaniel R. Atcheson

Director: Trey Parker
Cast: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mike Judge, Eric Idle, Isaac Hayes, Minnie Driver, George Clooney
Screenplay: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Pam Brady
Producers: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Runtime: 80 min.
US Distribution: Warner Bros./Paramount
Rated R: strong language, violence

Copyright 1999 Nathaniel R. Atcheson

I expected South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut to be offensive, raunchy, and extremely funny, but I didn't expect it to be as intelligently satirical as it is. I can honestly say that no movie has ever made me laugh harder than this one. While walking out of the theater, my friend, who is a South Park fan, told me that I probably got more out of it not being familiar with the series (I've only seen one episode). Perhaps that's true; I was certainly laughing louder than anyone in the audience. And often I couldn't believe what I was laughing at.

The story has our four young heroes learning an assortment of expletives from a Canadian movie; naturally, this leads to a heated anti-Canadian climate, and a vicious war against them into which Satan intervenes. Created almost entirely by comic geniuses Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the film attacks everything it can, including the MPAA, the U.S. Military, social intolerance, small-town mentality, and Bill Gates. South Park overflows with profanities used in ways most of us have probably never heard.

The film is so biting, so amazingly funny (I could *not* stop laughing after the general shoots Bill Gates), that it comes as an immense disappointment that the last twenty minutes are so bland. Parker and Stone focus too much on a strange homosexual relationship between Saddam Hussein and Satan, and don't find the funniest way to end their film. But it's still a quick 80-minutes -- 80 of the funniest and most culturally in-tune minutes I've ever sat through.

Psychosis Rating:  7/10

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