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 Chris' Review: You had me at "dicks fuck assholes". This is the kind of moronic jokes that will be found in the new South Park movie...er.. I mean... Team America: World Police. Seriously, if you don't like South Park... don't bother to see this movie. It's a lot of the same low-grade humor. The thing is, and I'm quite embarrassed about this, I laughed my ass off. Just like South Park, Team America drills you (pun intended) with dick jokes, minority bashing, puke jokes, sex jokes... etc... you get the idea. They are irreverent, and ultimately hilarious. First, the premise of the movie, an action/satirical film done entirely with puppets is something that has rarely (if ever) been done. Probably with good reason. The plot is quite satirical, but also aimless. It wanders all over the place so that if there was a message that is trying to be sent, it gets lost. Some of the jokes are used and reused until they completely lose their effect. On occasion, the jokes were more than enough the first time, the second time they were almost insulting... and the fourth time you're almost ready to walk out. The puppets saved it. Like good Hollywood production clockwork... every few minutes, the puppets are doing something that is so obnoxious, insulting, gross, shocking, or downright weird that you're laughing and laughing HARD. In concept, you think of the idea of puppet sex to be completely juvenile... and it is... but when shown in bright vibrant Technicolor... it's the funniest thing you've ever seen. With all it's faults, Team America had some brilliant saving graces. The scene where the panthers are released upon a couple members of Team America. That scene will live in my memory as one of the funniest ever. A number of times the puppets were put into real-life sets that reminded the audience of their scale... also made for some very funny moments. The songs, my god the songs... Trey Parker is the funniest man next to Weird Al when it comes to writing songs. The movie is worth seeing for the musical accompaniment alone. I found this when looking up the credits for the movie. This is something that makes a movie for me... all the little extras that went into it. I actually want to see it again just to catch some of this. Check the link out... it's fun. Team America Trivia. As much as I disliked the disjointed satire... one thing it did allow for; the directors were able to make fun of everyone equally. No one group can really feel that they are being unreasonably portrayed in this because EVERYONE is being made fun of. No one is immune when it comes to the minds of Trey and Matt. In that, they succeeded with aplomb. Finally, the "dicks, pussies, and assholes" speech. As juvenile as this sounds, it really has quite a bit of thought behind it. It works on a philosophical level that you don't expect from the movie, let alone anything with this much sex and swearing in it. As much as I detest the overuse of base, low-brow, speech... this is one of my favorite monologues of all time. Quoted for you in full: Spoiler Alert! Mouse over for text. "Gary Johnston: We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Pussies don't like dicks because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes. Assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck a asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate. And it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves. Because pussies are a inch and half away from assholes. I don't know much about this crazy crazy world, but I do know this. If you don't let us fuck this asshole we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit." Overall, I had a really hard time reconciling how I felt about this film... at times brilliant, at times ridiculous and sad. I give it 5 thumbs up. Ignoring the base humor, it was a very very funny film that had me laughing very hard... but the overuse, abuse and ultimate messiness of it detracted. Worth seeing, maybe even worth owning. We'll see.   Jim's Review: You will believe a puppet can vomit. The latest project from 'South Park' creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker is as ambitious a film as you're likely to see this year. And not just because of the medium in which it's told. As the pundits are so quick to remind us these days, it is a post-9/11 world, and all citizens are asked to remain vigilant in the face of a changing political climate. The current administration "won" re-election based largely on fear-mongering. "There's danger around every corner! The terrorists hate our freedom! We're not safe!", they stupidly claim, swaying the dim even as they completely absolve themselves of their own foreign policy fallings and go to war (and make MORE enemies) on false pretenses. Ahem. "Team America: World Police" began tweaking the right wing as soon as the title was announced. All too often, America has thought of itself as a de facto global cop, sticking its nose in where it wasn't necessarily welcome in order to "correct" what it viewed as world issues. At best, it's a wrong-headedly misplaced, pseudo-Arthurian "Might makes Right" philosophy. At worst...We look exactly like the arrogant, Western-centric über-cowboys of "Team America." Provided you live in a vacuum and have heard nothing about this film, the moment it opens, you realize it's going to be a different movie. Rather than the crude, paper-cutout animation of the creators' best-known project, "Team America" is told via the medium of puppetry. Or, more accurately, by marionettes. Marionettes that, while still bodily manipulated by strings held from above, are capable of a wide variety of emotional conveyance due to their faces being built on a sophisticated remote-control servo system. What sounds like a lot of techno mumbo-jumbo actually translates into an extremely cool effect: Puppets that largely move and look like real people. Cartoony, exaggerated people, but still people. The effect is pretty fantastic and a lot of fun to watch. In this age of CGI, it's nice to see what a few dedicated craftspeople and artists can create with wood, glue, fishing line, and imagination. Plot-wise, there's also a lot of fun to be had. Team America is comprised of a handful of cripplingly jingoistic, gung-ho super-soldier types who arrive in global hotspots to combat the threat of terrorism wherever it rears its swarthy head. Joe is a wholesome, square-jawed farmboy. Chris is a macho, profanity-spewing weapons expert. Blonde, bimboish Lisa is a pilot, and Sarah is supposedly an "empath", although her skills are dubious. They labor in their Mount Rushmore headquarters under the watchful eye of Director Spottswoode, Team America's flinty, iron-voiced patriarch. They are eventually joined by Gary, a "hunky", over-coiffed actor recruited for his skills in role-playing, world languages, and presumably, subterfuge. They wear matching, star-spangled jumpsuits, pilot heavily-armored red white and blue assault vehicles, and largely leave things not only much, much worse than they found them, but also much, much worse than they would have been had the terrorists had their way to begin with. The opening sequence has the Team laying waste to a significant portion of Paris in pursuit of a chattering, turbaned Arab toting a blinking suitcase. Offensive? Of course. But it's offensive on a lot more levels than are immediately apparent to the naked eye. The best satire is said to hold a mirror up to society in order that it see how ridiculous it is. Thus, more objectionable than the film's portrayal of Muslims as gnarled, angry, jihad-loving hate-spreaders is it's portrayal of Team America as over-the-top flag-wavers who care about nothing more than blowing shit up in the name of advancing the Western agenda at any cost. And it's not offensive because it's unfair. It's offensive because it hits a little too close to home for comfort, and forces one to realize how offensive what it SPOOFS usually is. Thus, anyone who cheers the World Police on as misunderstood heroes completely fails to grasp the point (and, chances are, also has a gun rack in their rear pickup truck window...but I digress). So, in the due course of squashing terrorism wherever it hides (even if it means leveling an entire city, then high-fiving over beers), Team America naturally draws criticism...Even though, firmly convinced they're the good guys, they can scarcely understand why. The organization that's the chief thorn in their side is the Film Actor's Guild (fictional, but dig the acronym), made up of a cadre of leftist, heart-on-sleeve Hollywood types like Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Janeane Garofalo, Ethan Hawke, and a particularly hilarious Matt Damon. All are represented by 3-D caricature puppets. All are extremists of the highest order. Long before a portly, hot-dog waving Michael Moore shows up, wrapped in dynamite and playing suicide bomber, it is abundantly clear that the film intends to sit in the center and take pot-shots at both the overinflated self-importance of the liberal left, and the with-us-or-against-us, chauvinistic right. Thankfully, both halves of the equation prove ripe for mockery, and the jokes flow like water. "Team America: World Police" is a funny, funny movie. The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission. I refuse to give away the film's best gags, but there were sequences that had me laughing so hard my sides ached. But, beyond being funny, it's also pretty fearless. Of course, one expects the creators of a frequently filthy, take-no-prisoners product like 'South Park' to be irreverent and keep no sacred cows, but "Team America" goes out of its way to drop jaws, and it's successful more often than not. Thankfully, it skewers its intended targets with genuine humor, and so keeps from tediously soapboxing its way through a ham-fisted social commentary. I'm going to give "Team America: World Police" 8 thumbs up. It represents satire at its most dead-on and biting, while still managing to keep things lively and very funny. Not only that, but it represents an impressive, clearly labor-intensive technical achievement. Sure, swarms of computer-generated sci-fi baddies are eye-popping, but when the hard work on the screen comes COMPLETELY from sweat, craftsmanship and dedication, it's even more so. BackHome - Info - Reviews - Map - Message Board - Photo Album |
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