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Movies: Team America - World Police
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Posted 2004-10-20, 01:16 AM
America! Fuck yeah!

Team America: World Police
Featuring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kristen Miller
Genre: Comedy


At one point, I was laughing so hard I almost threw up.

It's been five years since Trey and Matt gave us the stellar feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Five years of waiting to see what next batch of vulgar hilarity they would unleash upon the politically correct moviegoing masses. I've waiting five long years to see harcore puppet sex, and by God it was worth every second!


Plot

In our current-day world, regular people such as you and I go about our daily routines without the slightest idea of the horrors that threaten our oft-forsaken freedom. Children play in the park, mothers shop for groceries and fathers have a leisurely beer while they watch their favorite football team kick their opponents' asses. However, in the shadows of the bright, shiny free world, a darkness creeps through the cracks and corners of the foundations of liberty. A sickness infests the seedy clefts of democratic land. Terror rears it's ugly head, threatening to stamp out all free life as we know it.

Yet, we being mere citizens, we being simply average people are incapable of defending ourselves from this unseen menace. Who then, if not us will stand up and fight against the tyrannical machinations of our enemies? Team America. That's who.

Team America, lead by the fearless Joe (Trey Parker), and consisting of the psychology expert Lisa (Kristen Miller), world-famous psychic Sarah (Masasa), expert martial artist Chris (Matt Stone) and their commander Spottswoode, fights the good fight against terrorism and the rotten bastards that embrace it. However, in these darkest of times, Team America has found itself in a rut. Their progress is stagnating because of the team's inability to effectively infiltrate the enemy ranks and cause damage from the inside. Enter Gary Johnston, a famous broadway actor commissioned by Team America to become their undercover agent. By utilizing his superior acting skills, he will earn the trust of the enemy and assist Team America by crippling the terrorist framework from the inside.

However, standing in Team America's way is Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea and supplier of weaponry to the terrorist enemy. In addtion, Team America must also wage intellectual war with the members of the Film Actors Guild (or F.A.G.), lead by Alec Baldwin, as they attempt to subvert the Team's plans by whining and writing angry letters! The cards are stacked against our defenders in every concievable way, but they must rise above, for if not, all freedom shall be lost.


Acting

Considering that the acting consists entirely of voice dubs, it was very well done. The whole movie is one giant farce, so the over-the-top live delivery is natural. Parker and Stone's comic timing is fantastic as always, and the rest of the cast turns in great performances as well. One mighty interesting thing to note is that the actor that portrayed Alec Baldwin was none other than Maurice LaMarche, known for his comic performance of Brain from the TV cartoon, Pinky and the Brain.


Action

Okay, it's puppets on strings. Even in the face of that, however, you'd be amazed at some of the action sequences they managed to pull off in this one. Team America manages to cause an insane amount of damage across the entire world, destroying the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris as well as one of the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt. There are car chases, aerial dogfights, gunfights and one on one martial arts duels (the first of which is priceless; I'm laughing as I type this). You wouldn't expect a movie executed entirely through the use of puppets to be an entertaining action flick but it is. Hell, I'd be willing to say it's even more entertaining than most big-budget Hollywood action titles simply because of the difficulty involed in using the puppets.


Effects

Outstanding. The most impressive visual feat by far is the facial animations of the various puppets. You can see genuine emotion coming through their faces, and the sheer realism of it can be unnerving at times. The movements, facial animations and use of the puppets was so technically impressive that I actually had to consciously remind myself several times that those were puppets onscreen and not actual people. The entire presentation is so professional that I found myself sympathizing with dolls mush more easily than I did with the live actors playing in any of the movies I saw this summer. That's a pretty huge indication of how expertly the effects were pulled off in this one.


Music

As with nearly all of Parker and Stone's works, this film contains a lot of great original music. There are several musical scenes in the movie such as Gary's Broadway Finale song "Everybody Has AIDS" and Kim Jong Il's lament of his solitude, entitled "I'm So Ronery" (that's "Lonely" in a severely charicatured oriental accent). Every track in the film is written and performed by Parker and Stone, and certain tracks like "America! Fuck Yeah!" and "Montage" will be stuck in your head for days.


Overall

I loved every second of this movie. The first thing that any viewer must do when watching this movie is shut off all ability to be offended. The key to enjoying it is understanding Trey and Matt's political message in the film, and that is simply that party alliances and feverish support of a single side of the political spectrum is lunacy. To be a right-wing extremist means to be like Team America, a group of unthinking, moronic assholes that blow shit up and forget to ask any form of question afterwards. To be an extremist liberal, however, means to be a whining, pussy sycophant such as Alec Baldwin and his Film Actors Guild. Neither side is a good choice if you limit yourself to siding with just one of them. I've read a few reviews on this movie, and by far the most incredulously asinine piece I've seen was written by Roger Ebert who, for a pretty intelligent guy, somehow managed to completely miss the purpose of the film's message. An idiot would come out of this movie thinking that Trey and Matt advocate nihilism. An intelligent observer will see the message for what it truly is: think for yourself. Don't allow your political ties to one side dictate your every thought.

Politics play a great part in the satirical lampooning this movie shovels out, but nobody gets hammered as badly as Hollywood does in this one. The entire movie follows the Michael Bay/Paul W.S. Anderson formula of direction in that the story is hokey, the characters are predictable and one-dimensional and the action is unfathomably over-the-top. The entire film is one giant stab at shitty big-budget Hollywood summer "blockbusters" like The Day After Tomorrow and Pearl Harbor. In fact, this movie was originally intended to be an exact, scene by scene mockery of last summer's The Day After Tomorrow, but couldn't be made as such due to legal issues. The movie contains everything from the stereotypical big-explosion intro to the inevitable "hero rides his motorcycle after the tragic event" scene to the obvious "pumping up for the final act" montage. Shit, they've even got a Rocky-style theme song playing during that last montage with Parker singing about the importance of a movie montage! It's genius!

Even further than the movie-theme that Team America pokes fun at, the "A-List" celbrities take an even bigger beating. Actors such as Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo and Matt Damon are viciously charicatured as a group of liberal sissies so out of touch with the reality of the world that they actually end up joining forces with the bad guys! Other famous political celebrities such as Michael Moore are also bastardized and mocked relentlessly throughout the duration of the film.

But beyond the intelligent subtext of the film's message, the entire thing is just fucking funny. Early in Gary's membership of the Team, he is told by Commander Spottswoode that should his identity be found out by the terrorists, he will need the tools necessary for taking his own life. Expecting a tab of cyanide or something to that extent, Gary is shocked when Spottswoode hands him a
hammer
instead. Nearly every scene in this movie had me howling with laughter, from Chris' hand-to-hand battle with a terrorist in the opening of the movie to Gary's drunken stumble through a New York alleyway.

And then there's the puppet sex. Everybody has probably heard about this by now, and probably knows that the original version of the scene had to be cut down several times in order to drop the movie's rating from NC-17 to a hairline R. To put it simply, yeah it's pretty graphic, and it's absolutely hilarious just simply because of how completely over-the-top it is.

My favorite thing about this movie is that while mocking big-budget Hollywood films like The Day After Tomorrow, Trey parker and Matt Stone have successfully crafted a puppet movie that is more entertaining than the multi-million dollar films it lampoons! It's a movie riddled with toilet humor and visible strings, yet it manages to provide ten times the entertainment value you would have recived from this summer's Alien vs. Predator.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone with a sense of humor. If you can't laugh at puppets engaging in horrendous violence and crude sex, what the fuck can you laugh at?

Score:9.8

Last edited by Raziel; 2004-10-20 at 01:36 AM.
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Posted 2004-10-20, 01:43 AM in reply to Raziel's post "Movies: Team America - World Police"
Thanks for the review Raziel, I'm planning to see it soon.

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."- Benjamin Franklin
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Posted 2004-10-20, 01:47 AM in reply to Adrenachrome's post starting "Thanks for the review Raziel, I'm..."
I had to drive to another state to see it, and I'd gladly do it again. Make this movie a priority.
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Posted 2004-10-20, 10:11 AM in reply to Raziel's post starting "I had to drive to another state to see..."
Um... maybe your theater just didn't have THX sound... I'll throw my quarter to Raz's opinion. Fuck yeah!
D3V said:
This message is hidden because D3V is on your ignore list.
What is it they say about silence being golden?
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Posted 2004-10-21, 10:44 PM in reply to Raziel's post starting "I had to drive to another state to see..."
Raziel said:
It doesn't surprise me that the humor went over your head, Titus. You are the guy who just recently got his driver's license back at 23.
Probably see the movie over the weekend. We'll see.
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Posted 2004-10-22, 09:21 AM in reply to Raziel's post "Movies: Team America - World Police"
Since Raziel's opinion has never been any different than my own, I now must see this movie instead of simply wanting to.

Il papa caca nei legno?
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Posted 2004-10-22, 12:25 PM in reply to Raziel's post starting "I had to drive to another state to see..."
Thats a low blow, lets try to keep the gloves up. I prolly won't see the movie since judging by the previews it looks like it sucks.
!King_Amazon! said:
Just ask the married chick he fucked.

Who Delivers ten times out of ten?
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Posted 2004-10-22, 08:23 PM in reply to Raziel's post "Movies: Team America - World Police"
I love this movie, seen it tuesday then thursday and will probly seen it again. I get to see movies for free so I don't care how many times I see it... IT IS SO FUCKING FUNNY
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Posted 2004-10-23, 09:44 AM in reply to Raziel's post starting "I had to drive to another state to see..."
People like different types of humour. Get over it.

Me personally, I wouldn't mind seeing it. I think I would enjoy it...but alot of people wouldn't.
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Posted 2004-10-23, 10:30 AM in reply to Jamesadin's post starting "People like different types of humour...."
Cleaned up. I personally didn't really enjoy it, other than a few parts, but I've heard a lot of others actually say they loved it.
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Posted 2004-11-06, 08:31 AM in reply to Titusfied's post starting "Cleaned up. I personally didn't really..."
Just saw it. I liked it alot and I really liked the part when
They went to watch LEASE, the musical. I might have found that funny, just becuase I just saw RENT about a week ago. And when Chris said he was raped by Mr. Mistofolees from CATS. Hahaha! Oh yes, and also the line "Im gonna drill a couple holes in your dick, so when you piss, you'll piss in three directions! Oh yes, I also enjoyed the songs. Especially the songs "AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!" "All you need is a montage" and the one about how Pearl Harbour sucked. :P


Anyways, I really enjoyed the movie. 9/10
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