After seeing Team America: World Police, I had a headache from laughing so much. That’s how funny I thought it was. Playing off the stereotypes and cliches of every action movie ever made, this film is an equal opportunity offender. Everyone, from leftie Hollywood activists to warmongering righties, gets made fun of. I can’t go into the plot – it’s too absurd to talk about, but it will make you laugh.
The puppetry is downright amazing. I can understand why director of photography Bill Pope (The Matrix, Spider-Man 2) had such a hard time with the film – but the shots are really well done! The songs are hysterical. From “Everyone has AIDS” (from the hit broadway musical Lease), to “Montage”, and the anthem “America, F**k Yeah!”, you’ll be laughing all the way through.
The Kim Jong Il puppet is the best villain of the year, and his song “I’m So Ronery” is guaranteed to have you on the floor. As for the controvertial puppet sex scene – I can’t imagine what they cut (well, I know some things, but that’s not for you to know) since this was still pretty “hard core”, but funny as all hell. I don’t think it would have gotten an NC-17 rating, though – stupid MPAA. The fact that Susan Sarandon falls to her death with a bloody splat, and Michael Moore blows himself up suicide-bomber style apparently doesn’t matter. But put your Ken and Barbie dolls in “naughty positions” and you get an NC-17? Whatever. They’re about as useless as the UN!
The music was a rather controvertial issue as well. Composer Marc Shaiman was fired from the film 3 weeks ago, because Trey Parker never heard any of the music. Why? Because he was still filming! (And editing, and changing things on Marc – poor guy!) Anyways, his score was tossed because it wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted a Jerry Bruckheimer action score. So in came Harry Gregson-Williams, and he did a bang-up job. He and his team wrote 80 minutes of music in 5 days, which is impressive any way you look at it.
If you want to laugh, and have a fun time while most of the world is insulted, go see Team America: World Police. It’s not for the easily offended, and it’s very crude. As the MPAA put it: “Rated R for Graphic, Crude & Sexual Humor, Violent Images & Strong Language; All Involving Puppets”. Gotta love that last clause.