Team America: World Police Sneek Peak Review

Celebrated Broadway star Gary Johnston is called upon by Team America, a team of heroes set on ridding the world of terrorism, to infiltrate a terrorist organization and uncover who is bent on bringing doom to the free world. They have the guns and tanks – it might as well be them. But we discover that Team America is viewed no differently from terrorist organizations as national landmarks are often left to ruin after TA’s work is done. Who is the real terrorist here? That’s about as deep as it gets though. After all, this is a movie from the creators of South Park and who brought you their form of small screen vulgarity and blew it up in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. You can expect the same vulgarity and crassness you have come to love from these fine upstanding pillars of society.

Team America: World Police is Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s tribute to Bruckheimer summer blockbusters and a jab at America’s current state of foreign policy. I have never seen American foreign policy explained so accurately and vividly using human genitalia. But once it’s explained in the movie it makes perfect sense. Too bad you can’t repeat it in public. I’ve seen puppets do things in the bedroom that I didn’t know existed until tonight. It borders on the same plane of thought as Bugs Bunny dressing up as a girl bunny. Is it hot? Is it normal that I am ever so slightly… um… uplifted by the puppet sex scene in this movie… I heard one guy ask as he left the theatre, I did.

The set design was by the same people that have worked on Henson shows and movies. The production value is way up and it looks great. And part of that look is thanks in part to Bill Pope, director of cinematography for the Matrix franchise and most recently Spider-Man 2. This has the look of a Hollywood blockbuster throughout so the experience isn’t cheapened by shoddy work. The scope it as big as the set pieces. Everything was built to one-third scale so the attention to detail is awesome.

Team America’s Kim Jong Il matches Bigger, Longer & Uncut’s Saddam Hussein as one of the great cartoon villains of all time! An evil bastard, but one with feelings who bleeds just like any other… uh… puppet. Trey and Matt also take their shots at Hollywood with the Film Actors Guild: F.A.G. [yes, expect a lot of jokes about F.A.G. in this movie]. And I paraphrase, “Hey. Let’s read about things in the paper and then repeat them so we look smart”. If you were vocal about America’s current position in the world then chances are you got burned in Team America.

And you can depend on the guys to bring you a soundtrack that is beyond compare. Most of the songs are original works by Trey, Matt and feature smash hits like "Everyone Has AIDS", "America, F**k Yeah" and Kim Jong Il’s solo effort "I'm So Ronery"

Ultimately, if you dig on Trey and Matt’s humor then you are going to laugh your ass off during this movie. If you don’t find vulgarity, racial slander, sexual perversion, what may be the greatest puppet projectile vomit scene and nude puppets offensive then by all means plan to go the theatre next weekend and catch Team America: World Police. But if you’re a prude or a big baby then go watch Raise Your Voice or something a little tamer. Highly recommended but with a stern warning for pansies out there.

Pearl Harbour sucks, and I miss you.