You know, I'm really glad I got to see "Team America: World Police" at a preview instead of waiting until opening night for 2 reasons: a) I got to see it before you did, nyah nyah and b) I'm afraid irony this intense might not translate well, so as soon as this movie is released overseas we all might be nuked into oblivion. If you've managed to go this long without hearing anything about "Team America," I'll give a quick recap. The creators of "South Park," Trey Parker and Matt Stone, saw an old episode of the all-marionette TV show Thunderbirds and decided they wanted to, in their own words, "fuck up some puppets.
" In order to accomplish said fucking up, they created a movie that lampoons global politics, self-important actors, Kim Jong Il, and most of all, every single action movie cliche since the beginning of time. The movie follows the exploits of the five members of Team America, and it begins by showing a typical encounter in Paris. Although they manage to kill all four terrorists and stop them from using WMDs, they also lose a member in the process.
Oh yeah, and they kinda destroy the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe as well, but hey, they missed. To fill the empty slot, they seek out Gary Johnston, a rising young actor starring in the Brodway show "Lease." Using his superhuman acting powers and degree in world languages, he is able to infiltrate the terrorist network and stop another attack.
But afterward, a situation is created that tears the members of Team America apart. At the same time, their reckless and destructive methods draw the ire of a coalition of actors from the Film Actors Guild (or FAG for short), and they must defend themselves from the likes of Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn and , among others. Can they put their differences aside and confront their dark secrets in time to save the world from the evil dictator Kim Jong Il?
Well I guess you'll just have to shell out eight bucks tomorrow because I ain't telling. One thing I will say is that this is by far the funniest movie I've seen in a long time, and in some parts, I was literally laughing until my sides hurt. While much has been made of the politics of the film, it's really action movies that are the biggest target here.
From the Team America theme song, "America, Fuck Yeah!," to the cheesy one-liners and high body count, every page from the Jerry Bruckheimer playbook is ripped out and used as toilet paper. There's even a sad scene set to a slow song, which begins with the line "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor.
" Most of the rest of the humor simply grows from the fact that it's all puppets doing these action movie cliches, and there is just something intrinsically funny about puppets swearing, fighting, spewing vomit and -- God help us all -- screwing their brains out in almost every concieveable position. As for any political agenda in the film, I personally didn't notice one and it seemed that, as usual, the "South Park" guys are equally adept at making fun of both sides in any debate. Thinking back on it, I realize that there wasn't a single mention of President Bush, Senator Kerry or the U.
S. government at all, and it seems mostly aimed at people who are just as sick of whiny liberals as they are of gung-ho conservatives. I actually read a recent review where the creators said they weren't taking a side, and were just trying to make a movie about what it's like to be an American right now.
This probably counts as the biggest joke in the movie because so far, three years after 9/11, the movie that has most accurately captured the simultaneous pride and horror of being a U.S. citizen in the 21st century involves puppets saying "fuck" a whole lot.
And really, when you think about it, what's more American than that?
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