Team America: World Police Review
by Johnny Betts (johnny_betts AT hotmail DOT com)October 18th, 2004
Rating: 2.5/5
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It entertains! It offends! It repulses! And rumor has it that the edges of the DVD will be so sharp that it'll slice and dice as well! But since I have a friend who claims people use DVDs as nipple shields, then you probably don't want the DVD anywhere near your food.
There were times when I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. In fact, I died for approximately 3 seconds at one point. But then there were some scenes that caused me to long for a fast forward button. I'll break it down for you.
If anybody deserves to be made fun of it's Hollywood extremists like Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, etc. who seem to think their opinions are the only ones that matter. Team America does a brilliant job of showing how shallow and self-important these people really are. Why else would Penn send a tear-stained letter to Parker and Stone about the movie? I love the scene mocking Penn's "fact finding" mission to Iraq. He talks about seeing rainbows and children frolicking in chocolate rivers, hahaha. Beautiful.
Like the majority of Americans, Parker and Stone are obviously tired of these celebrities shoving their politics down our collective throat. So what's their solution? Mock 'em, make 'em all part of the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.), and take 'em out with heavy artillery! I love when Alec Baldwin has been out-acted, and when called on to respond he gets disheveled and starts mumbling, "Global warming ... corporate America..." And the only thing Tim Robbins knows how to do is blame everything on corporations doing "coporationey" things.
Oh, and if you've ever wanted to see "the socialist weasel" Michael Moore blown up, then there's something here for you.
The parody songs are pretty funny too. A couple of 'em are too vulgar for my tastes, but the Montage song is brilliant. There's another one mocking Ben Affleck and Michael Bay for missing the whole point of Pearl Harbor. And I think my favorite is the great country parody asking what you would do if freedom wasn't free. My sides hurt during that one. It's about time somebody mocked cheesy Alan Jackson-esque country songs. The man wrote a song with the lyrics, "I'm not a real political man. I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran." Come on, that's just gay. There's a lot more to laugh at as well: some Star Wars parody, the repeated use of the word "jihad," the musical production of "Everybody Has AIDS," and the puppets, which are used to GREAT effect.
The South Park boys do an excellent job of mocking a litany of big budget action movie cliches from the cheesy one-liners ("Hey terrorist, terrorize this!") to the inevitable soul-baring scene of one of the antagonists. But then there's the dark side, the point where the movie starts to lose focus.
Call me old-fashioned, boy scout, choir boy, whatever, but I can do without scenes involving implied homosexual puppet activity that is referred to for the next 20 minutes. It's just not very clever, and it's an obvious attempt at seeing how far over the line they can go. I was made even more uncomfortable by the fact that a 10-year-old was sitting a couple seats away from me. Parents, PLEASE leave your children at home if you go see this.
I know you've heard about it, so I'll address it: there's a scene that lasts for about a minute or two featuring puppets in every possible sexual position you can imagine. I had heard it had been heavily edited, so I was pretty shocked by what actually made the final cut. I thought to myself, "If that's what made it in the movie, what on earth got cut???" I was told after the movie that an additional two minutes had been trimmed. I know this scene won't bother some people, but it's just not my kind of humor.
So all in all I'm gonna have to go middle-of-the-road on this one. It's half brilliant satire and half "let's see how vulgar we can get" humor. The satire worked for me, but the intentionally obvious vulgarity didn't. That's the big disappointment. The first half of the movie is set up brilliantly, but then it felt like they rubbed their hands together, laughed maniacally and said, "All right, time to get nasty!" I know, I know, it's their trademark. But it just seems so unnecessary.
The funny stuff is absolutely hilarious. If they had stuck to the political satire and making fun of Hollywood extremists, then this could've been a 4 mark movie. But it's obvious that Parker and Stone were intent on seeing how far over the edge they could go. Whenever the movie started going off into expletive-filled, sexual tangents is when I became detached. I just feel that shows a lack of creativity and originality. I'm sure it's stuff that'll appeal to their hardcore fans, but it just seemed forced and not very clever. It's pretty obvious that they're saying, "Hey, look at how much of a headache we can give the MPAA!" Your tolerance may vary.
THE GIST
I'll give Matt Stone and Trey Parker credit - they're willing to offend anyone, and they're not shy about it. Team America: World Police works best when it's specifically targeting celebrities and their social causes, action movie cliches, and bad country songs. Unfortunately, the movie lost me when it shifted into the "let's start dropping f-bombs and explicit sexual analogies to see how extreme of a reaction we can get" mentality. If you're the type of person who has no shame and isn't offended by anything, then this won't bother you. But if you have *any* reservations about the material, then it'd be best for you to wait for one of your shameless friends to get the DVD and fast forward through the vulgarity.
Johnny Betts
http://www.themoviemark.com
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