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Review of Team America World Police
The movie is essentially a parody of your standard summer blockbuster. In this case we have "Team America", the stereotypical hodge podge band of freedom fighters brought together to kick ass (not surprisingly) for America and for Freedom. It turns out that marionettes are the ideal vehicle for such a film: the summer blockbuster genre has at its very core the super huge special effect. A parody would be hard pressed to convincingly duplicate these effects. But these are puppets. So the effects are supposed to look silly. And this is fortunate: the film takes constant blissful pleasure in the blockbuster tradition of demolishing national monuments, from the Eiffel tower to Mount Rushmore.
Our team of freedom fighters hits all the standard cliche's: we lose a member, find a replacement, who gets jaded and ultimately must come to terms with his feelings about his job while the team comes to accept the new guy.
Of course, there is some sort of a plot as well. In South Park the movie, Parker used Saddam Hussein as his evil joke. This time it's Kim Jong-il. He's really no different than Saddam was last time around. Just a ludicrous bad guy. In this case he's busy masterminding a stupid plot where he unifies the hollywood liberals and various terrorist organization as part of your standard wreck the world plan. It's thin, but no thinner than what it parodies.
I think my general concern going into this movie was the politics. The movie could very easily get mired down in preaching a point. But thankfully it never really does that. It simultaneously makes fun of liberal hollywood actors, and the rah rah 'Go America' right wing stereotype. But the movie isn't really picking sides: it's more about parodying the genre of summer blockbuster then it is about right vs left or war vs peace. Thats a good thing. Parker has proven time and time again that he can make simple points very well. South Park has addressed countless social issues over the years, and the feature film really took issues like censorship and parenting in a very meaningful way. Team America doesn't spend much time trying to seriously address the issues. It's just simple fun.
The other major concern that I harbored was that the marionette jokes would run thin. As I said before, the use of marionettes works great for mocking special effects, but the film easily could have constantly referred back to the fact that we are watching puppets. There are only a few jokes like that. Since they are used so sparingly, they make it all the more amusing when it happens. And there's a lot of hilarity to be derived from puppet sex when the film is pretending to be serious about it.
Like all of Parker's movies, they come out guns blazing, and 30 minutes in, I find myself needing a commercial break. The jokes are constant and funny. Maybe too funny. By the middle of the film you see something funny but are so desensitized that it's tough to muster another laugh. Of course then they turn around and beat you over the head with something new.
It's also worth noting that the facial puppetteering is really cool. Everyone involved should be really proud of themselves for pulling off something so visually unique.
I really enjoyed the film. I went in with high hopes and was pleased to have them all met. Even my wife, who is quite sick of South Park and wasn't looking forward to watching this at all came out absolutely giddy with laughter.
If you're a South Park fan, you'll love this movie. If you're a fan of summer blockbusters, and can tolerate the language, you'll love this movie. If you're a prude, watch something else. As for me, this is the first movie in months that I decided to buy the DVD before it was over.
Team America
http://www.busyweather.com/
Maybe to funny.
You were doing so well...
...we got a movie based on politics that really doesn't have a bias or an op-ed piece, and just around Election Day. It's just a movie making fun of everyday politics and the current events that we face. Sometimes we just have to look at what's going on and laugh instead of picking sides and blaming people for it.
Ask and Discuss your HTML and other web dev stuff
Salon has an interview with Tray and Matt about this where they talk about their intent and how people react to the movie.
Jon Katz, where are you??
Sean Penn's a bit peeved.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I wasn't desensitized; I just thought the first half of the movie was funnier than the second half. There were some good moments here and there later in the movie, but the first half had the whole audience laughing hysterically at least once a minute.
(Slight spoiler, I guess...) I think they overestimated the staying power of the "Hollywood stars are actually conniving villains" joke. The incongruity was funny at first, but the film repeated the same basic gag over and over with only slight variations and it got tiresome.
However, I'm glad I stayed till the end of the credits.
Kim Jong-Il's deadly panthers! (oooh, scary!)
The new guy's panic signal.
The stretch Lamborghini!
It's...inebidable.
The opening scene with the marionette's marionettes,
The new guy's terrorist disguise.
The psychic team member. "I sense I'm attracted to him."
The 'love' scene.
Team America's theme song.
Freedom costs a buck-oh-five.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess Parker & Stone are gay, because they sure do seem obsessed by cock.
An entire sentence is devoted to the plot and characters. The rest is rambling about how funny it was, and some irrelevant nonsense about the South Park movie. So Taco liked the movie. Thanks for sharing.
;P
On a side note, Taco must be pissed off at his wife. Why else would he give her a Slashdotting?
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
You know it has to be good when you can see the wires :D
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
Oh my God, CmdrTaco! You Slashdotted your wife! You bastard! ;-)
I believe I speak for my fellow prudes everywhere when I say I'm offended.
I haven't seen the movie, mind you, but I did read the review.
Is there no shame left? These are our children who are watching these sorts of things.
sigs, as if you care.
Shouldn't you mention that you were paid for this review? (I dunno if it was free tickets or paid advertising, but it was a 'forced' review).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
... apparently completely incapable of understanding satire, parody, OR irony.
Unless Drudge made that thing up.
After the success of World Police, get ready for the sequel!
Team America: Grammar Patrol!!
Rated R for Retarded...
Where a group of lurky nerds troll Internet forums around the world constantly correcting spelling mistakes and bad grammar and denouncing it as the bane of the universe!!
Friends don't let Friends use Internet Explorer.
"I'm so sick of this 'cool neo-libertarian crap.' You get to whine about taxes, blame everything on the two party system, and then still be about legalizing drugs and being pro-gun."
;)
Yeah, people who are so serious about liberty as to be fanatical about it are stupid! That Kim Jong-Il sure showed those libertarians a thing or two when he abolished the ownership society and created the ultimate complete welfare state.
But seriously, I'm not sure you understand what libertarian means. You (a "liberal", obviously) seem to think it's some kind of right extremist movement. Conservatives, on the other hand, think it's some kind of wacky leftist movement. But it's neither. If you can't handle our crazy, freedom-loving ways, just ignore us and we'll try not to bother you at parties.
Oh yea, you can have gunshots, swearing, explosions, people dying in sprays of blood... but simulated sex between two marionettes is bad, bad, bad! Maybe the censors got mocked in the movie also? :P
Julie Moult is an idiot.
maybe you should take a look at Barlett and Steele's new book on health care in the US. not only do we spend more, we live shorter lives, get sicker, and actually have wait times for most procedures within a statistically insignificant margin of Canada and much of western Europe. Whatever might have been good about the US health care system, say 20 years ago, has faded in the stupid experiment of a "free market" running health care. Result? 10-20% of expenditure is spent on bureaucracy (contrast with "bureaucratic government" running Medicare at 2-3% of expenditure), and the most senior physicians are just quitting the insurance scene entirely. The fundamental problem is that a free market system works when "selling more" makes sense according to some metric. But "selling more" health care is the opposite of what just about everybody wants from a medical system, and so it starts to break down. Add in the fact that "choice" is virtually incomprehensible in a system where employers pick insurance schemes and most consumers don't know even basic medical facts.
The real truth is that FDR's welfare state was a band aid to avoid a revolution that was brewing in American society during his term as president. Unlike the systems initiated in Europe, which were put in place as a result of direct protest by unions and other non-capital-owning organizations. FDR headed off the fears of the capital owners of the US by instituting a minimal welfare state that did enough to ease the worst fears of the poor, but little more.
And as for your 43% gains this year, lucky you. Just glad you weren't retiring in a period that saw persistent declines in stock values, let alone right after a massive drop like '87 or the tech bubble blowout.
Am I the only one that's scared of marionettes, claymation and midgets?
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
I've been looking forward to seeing this movie since Columbine, and I better start this review by putting my cards on the table: I'm a fan of South Park, the TV show and the movie, especially in our post-Columbine world where young geeks are not allowed to express themselves fully in a high school setting. In fact, I've seen Orgazmo and Cannibal the Musical simply because they were about Columbine. I was skeptical about a Columbine movie, but I went in with realistic expectations.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
For the same reason The Simpsons, Futurama, and South Park (among others, though my memory is lapsing right now) are 'nerdy'.
Look at the number of +3 to +5 "Funny" posts in the comments of every article and you find at least one South Park reference and at least one Simpsons reference.
All are shows that mostly only nerds get the humor of. Sure, you have the overt dick and fart jokes, but there's an underlying substance. Nerds 'get it', while the people who are pleased by dick and fart jokes help to keep the series(es?) popular.
Team America, I gather, is about the same, if, like everyone says, it's just like an episode of South Park. Thus, two levels of humor, one nerdy, one pedestrian, and thus newsworthy for nerds.
Your whole review is spent incensing the movie. As much as I like South Park, I'm skeptical, The reviews over at Rottentomatoes.com paint a differente picture...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
interesting, I can watch quicktime format on everything from linux to BSD to BeOS
your savoir is called mplayer, and specifically the mplayer mozilla plugin.
instead of bitching, try looking for solutions next time.
Didnt both these guys receive federal aid when they went to college?
Uh - keep in mind that college wouldn't be nearly as expensive if nobody could receive federal aid. If the Federal government would allow anybody to borrow $100,000 per year as long as it was spent on tuition, then you'd see college prices raise to $110,000 next week. Under this kind of system it is perfectly reasonable to be against federal aid and yet freely accept it for oneself. Banning it would only work if it were banned uniformly, causing colleges to find ways to cut costs...
The fact is that I don't agree with all the positions of any of the parties. However, for me the Libertarians tend to have the most reasonable positions on the issues that matter to me. I wouldn't assume that if they were elected their first order of business would be to impose total anarchy during week one.
You know I'm laughing at you right now. I swear Libertarians bite easier than any other political grouping.
Quicktime IS the cross-platform option. I hate going to sites like Yahoo Launch or MTV and not being able to see videos because their using Windows Media Player (embedded), because I'm using a Mac.
.mov files on Linux. I've never had any problems with QuickTime on Windows. I install it on all my clients machines as part of the standard set-up, and walla, it just works.
QuickTime is available for Mac and PC, and MPlayer and a couple other applications will play the
But as for your complaint, there are movie trailers in formats other than QuickTime, you just can't access them from the Apple site. The issue is that Apple collects and displays movie trailers. Millions of people use these trailers daily because of they are accessible. Searching for trailers elsewhere requires going to many different sites, and using different media players from Windows Media to RealPlayer, this codec here, a different codec elsewhere.
Let's face it people link to Apple because their collection of trailers are easy to navigate, accessible, cross-platform, and in a single location. This just encourages movie studios to create more QuickTime trailers, because studios know people will go to the Apple site to look at what's coming out.
Here's the context that gad zuki! left out:
[snip]
Stone: And the whole voting thing. All we ever said was that we thought that uninformed people should not vote -- on either side of the political spectrum. It doesn't matter who you're gonna vote for. If you really don't know who you're gonna vote for, or are uninformed, or haven't really thought about it? Just stay home. Don't let people fucking shame you into going to the polls.
Parker: If you have absolutely no idea, fuck it.
Stone: If you really don't know or you're just going to vote for George Bush because he's already in office, or you're gonna vote for John Kerry because he's on the cover of Rolling Stone, don't do that. That's lame. Just stay home. That's all we ever said.
[/snip]
I've heard some talk on NPR about this, about how MTV is running ads about voting like they are shaving cream commercials. I'm all for "get out the vote" campaigns, but I personally feel like being educated on the candidates and issues is important too.
Do we really want people who don't feel like learning about the candidates and issues voting on these things? I've voted in every election since 1988, and when I hit something on a ballot that I don't know anything about (usually local races that I have not followed), I don't vote. I don't think this is such a heinous idea - that you should only cast informed votes...