Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police

I love South Park . Let me get that out in the open. Even at its weakest I can't help but be giddily envious/awed of Trey Parker and Matt Stone (but mainly Trey Parker – Matt don't seem to do all that much, really) and their willingness to push the boundaries of taste and comedy. Thank fuck these guys are around to pull the piss out of every and anything.

Team America: World Police is a brilliantly hilarious idea that takes aim at America's center-of-the-universe, self-imposed protector of the world, terrorism-obsessed state of mind and also at Hollywood's A-listers that continually speak out about such problems – embodied by the smug superiority oozed by Sean “I've been to Iraq” Penn – after all, who the fuck are these celebrities that their words should matter any more than the average person? How big are their egos that they not only want to be the biggest, highest earning, movie stars in the world – they also want to be it's saviour?

Of course the film is also one big shot at Jerry Bruckheimer and his ilk. By taking all the clichés of the shitfull action flicks Hollywood keeps churning out and having them performed by marionettes, the message is pretty clear. How funny you find that depends on your sense of humour. Some will tire pretty quickly of what they think is a one-joke film, others will chortle at the idea of puppets blowing up entire cities, or karate-chopping each other, and others, myself included, will love all that, plus all the hilariously spot-on genre riffs. A personal favourite is how the main characters continually take a moment in the heat of the battle to discuss their feelings for one another. There are flat spots – the romance plot for instance, which is all part of the joke in my opinion – but if you're willing to stick with it there's plenty to reward you.

Watching this film for the second time came after I had devoured all the special features (a rarity for me) and since then I can't help noticing how fucking amazing all the marionette work is. Of course there is also the music, and if you haven't yet seen the film, there's a very good chance you have at least heard someone humming or singing a few bars of some of Parker's warped songs. “America – Fuck Yeah” is the crowd pleaser, but it's hard to go past the Rent-inspired “Everyone had AIDS”, or the song that's just about how shit Pearl Harbour was. “Pearl Harbour sucked, and I miss you.”

Like South Park, the humour isn't going to be for everyone – which is exactly the point. On first watch my initial reaction, along with most people that I know, was that it just wasn't as funny as the rest of their stuff. Since then there has been a second, and third time, and happy to be wrong, I predict many more.