Parker and Stone: Comedic Genius!

Team America:

World Police

* * *

This movie is one that I've been meaning to watch for a long time. Granted, I am not the world's biggest fan of South Park, but I did really enjoy the South Park movie. So, when I first heard about this one, I had a little bit of hesitation. Until I realized that it was completely made with marionettes. I mean, come on, who doesn't like a puppet show? Let alone one that is 90 minutes long and features the most bizarre sex scene ever recorded on film.

Team America polices the world from terrorists and when Kim Jong Il threatens the world's safety by potentially detonating enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy the world, all hell breaks loose. One of the members fo the team dies, and has to be replaced by an actor so he can infiltrate the terrorists to find out where the bombs are.

This movie is full of tasteless humor and politically incorrect faux pas, but its funny. It really funny. I was watching it with a friend, and both of us were saying that we couldn't believe how politically incorrect the movie was. They took every single clichee about Arabs and Koreans and just ran with it. Example? When X undergoes surgery to make him look more like an Arab, he ends up coming out with a unibrow and patchy facial hair. Another example? Every time someone of foreign nationality talks in their native language, they basically gibber jabber and throw in the odd word that everyone knows from that language. The French say 'sacre blue' a lot and the Arabs say 'Allah' and 'Jihad' a lot. My friend and I were groaning in humor at stuff like this. Its so wrong its funny.

This movie isn't for everyone. If you're easily offended, I would say don't watch this one. If you don't appreciate people making fun of other cultures and getting away with it so well, don't watch this one. If you don't like puppets, don't watch this one.

I loved this movie. I doesn't make me want to watch South Park the show anymore, but it does validate the fact that Trey Parker and Matt Stone can make good movies. Come on, who didn't like BASEketball?

I've heard that this due of Parker and Stone plan on making an old fashioned monster movie, complete with big rubber suits and cardboard cities being stomped on. If they can keep the same sense of twists humor in that one as is in Team America: World Police they have another guaranteed hit on their hands.

Bottom Line: So politically incorrect it isn't funny, but also, one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time.