Team America: World Police (2004)
"I'm sick of politics. It's more
about fucking up puppets." - Trey Parker in "In Focus"
magazine
Well, they're not puppets; they're
marionettes, puppets guided by strings. Matt Parker
and Trey Parker, the guys behind "South Park," pay
homage to the old 60's TV show "Thunderbirds" by creating
a Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay style action flick
that is so politically incorrect, so ridiculous and
so fucking hilarious that you better not by a Coke
when you go to the theater because you are going to
pee your pants if there is an ounce of liquid in your
kidneys.
What more do you really need to
know? The "South Park" guys, given the freedom to
do R-rated material in a feature film, spoofing action
films, spoofing marionette TV shows, in a puppet film
with sex, violence and foul language and featuring
the duo's trademark hilarious songs. I'm in! Aren't
you fucking in?
You can be offended if you want.
As a gay guy, I get offended by movies all the time.
Especially macho, testosterone driven action films.
Yes, there's a ton of homophobic comments and language
in the film... But the jokes are just funny. The opening
scene that spoofs the musical play "Rent" is one of
the most insane and hilarious things I've seen in
a movie this year. Yes, it's offensive! The best jokes
usually are.
And so what if the Hollywood community
is made fun of here. Yes, I love Tim Robbins, Sean
Penn, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore and Matt Damon
as much as the next gay, bleeding-heart liberal. It
doesn't mean that they are above satire. Sure, the
acronym used for the actors organization is homophobic
and not funny. Parker and Stone can't be perfect.
Doesn't matter. When 99% of a movie is hilarious,
the one percent that doesn't work is easily forgiven.
This is a hilarious film. If you
don't get this kind of humor, I really feel sorry
for you, man. If you don't think puppets getting shot
to death with blood oozing everywhere is funny, if
you don't think marionettes fucking, smoking, drinking
and talking about gay sex is funny, dude, something
ain't right with you.
Notes:
Also with marionettes representing
George Clooney, Kim Jong Il, Hans Blix, Helen Hunt,
Samuel L. Jackson and other celebs.
Parker and Stone do most of the
voices here.
The sex scene in the film, with
a male and female puppet that are not anatomically
correct, originally ran three and a half minutes.
The MPAA initially rated the film NC-17 and insisted
on cuts on 10 different viewings of the film until
it was eventually cut to 30 seconds in order to get
an R rating.
At one time the film was to be called
"American Heroes."
Parker and Stone got a script for
the film "The Day After Tomorrow" as it was being
filmed and initially wanted to make that film with
marionettes and release a scene for scene duplicate
on that day that film came out in May of 2004 but
their lawyers convinced them that no one would release
such a film.
Viewed in Austin in October 2004.
