Team America: ready to appease both sides of the aisle.
|
Team America: World Police
Starring the voices of Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Darran Norris, Kristen Miller, and Elle Russ. Directed by Trey Parker. Written by Pam Brady, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone. Rated R. |
Gone South
Trey Parker and Matt Stone can’t conjure up the Cartman-ian humor in their latest full-length feature.
By BRIAN ABRAMS
Sight gags and toilet humor jokes can run rampant in any adult comedy — as long as they make artistic sense. A square of Charmin stuck to the bottom of a wingtip can be either the funniest or stupidest thing you’ve ever seen, depending on the context. Good example: Rodney Dangerfield in any one of the films in his social-welfare trilogy (Caddyshack, Easy Money, Back to School). With his easygoing, self-deprecating style, he had both Reaganite white-breads and Springsteen-ian blue collars in stitches for decades — not because one of his characters cut a fart, but because one of his characters cut a fart in the main dining hall of a posh country club.
Yet even as prescient as Dangerfield (R.I.P.) was, he dropped the occasional ham. The same holds true for this era’s most scathing comedy duo, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Even when not compared to their unqualified slice of genius, the adult cartoon South Park, their latest endeavor — the full-length feature Team America: World Police — is still the most disappointing movie of the year.
In Parker and Stone’s latest attempt at social satire, the action doesn’t take place in the two dimensions of cartoonland but in the three-dimensional world of marionettes. Yet even these skillfully manipulated characters (voiced mostly by Parker, Stone, and Kristen Miller) can’t relieve the film of its major flaws, including a plot that’s merely an excuse to take jabs at just about every social group. What little plot there is revolves around a handful of super-trooper cohorts that’s out to rid the planet of multiple evils, including various terrorists of Middle Eastern descent, a hair-lipped North Korean militant named — oddly enough — Kim Jong Il, and the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.), a group of politically active celebrities-gone-rampant led by a five o’clock-shadowed Alec Baldwin.
F.A.G. and Kim soon join forces, Team America has to strike back, and the remainder of the film goes through the same motions as any ’80s-era action flick. And unless you consider gratuitous scatological jokes edgy and controversial, the humor is pretty mild, like Garbage Pail Kids-ish without the stick of bubble gum.
This isn’t to say that Parker and Stone don’t try to push lots of buttons. But as Rodney proved, it’s better to push the right buttons than just all of them at once. In one early scene, Gary Johnston, Team America’s leader, coughs up a mustard-yellow stream of vomit behind a back alley dumpster after a night of heavy boozing, but the only remotely “funny” aspect of the entire scene is simply watching a puppet, ya know, puke. Needless to say, the laugh doesn’t linger. And in another scene that’s being talked to death, Johnston and his love interest Lisa have sex in myriad positions. Again, if these characters were cartoons or real people instead of puppets, none of their lovemaking would seem humorous.
What’s really sad is that Team America is a portrait of two brilliant, unapologetic satirists chickening out. On South Park, nothing is sacred. In past episodes, Parker and Stone have portrayed Mel Gibson as a full-fledged masochist who lives in a Malibu mansion with walls adorned in torture devices. They’ve depicted Third World do-gooder Sally Struthers as Jabba the Hutt, eating all of the food rations sent from overseas for starving African children. They’ve even pulled off the incredible coup of featuring as a main character an overweight African-American cafeteria cook with nothing but sex on the brain. If anyone in Hollywood could have taken on this fucked-up world — and one particular Texan’s rose-colored view on “freedom” — it’s the team of Parker and Stone. Consider Team America one big missed opportunity.
Whatever little political statements are contained in the movie are safe and middle-of-the-road. Rumor has it that the film’s distribution company, Paramount, went way over budget (try low eight figures) to get this thing into theaters before Election Day. For what reason, we’re not sure. The film’s message is wholly centrist, advocating on one side for right-wing Rambos to keep the peace and on the other for meddlesome liberals to keep the fighters in check. And this sentiment is different in what other election year?
Email this Article...
