Team America: World Police (Review)

AMERICA! Fu*#, I mean Gosh Yeah.

So Matt Stone and Trey Parker are living every kid’s dream, they get to make millions of kids laugh every week by making cardboard cut-outs swear and poking fun at celebrities, and they have the pull to get a movie where they make puppets swear while they poke fun at celebrities. Need I also add they got to star in a film where they drank beer and played sport while lingerie-clad cheerleaders danced and gyrated in the background and they scored with an in-her-prime Carmen Electra? (While they swore and poked fun at celebrities.)

Well done lads.

That being said Team America is actually very good.

Team America are a bunch of stereotypical gung-ho boneheads and sensitive chicks who remain alert and vigilant at all times to protect the red, white and blue, (that doesn’t mean France either.)

Their aim? – to wipe out terrorism. Luckily terrorists usually carry a suitcase with a blinking red light on it, and have big bushy beards (and look middle Eastern) so they are easy to spot. It also helps when they blow up famous landmarks and millions of dollars worth of property in their missions that no-one really seems to care, or more to the point perhaps they simply don’t listen if they do. They’re American after all! (There were so many well known landmarks being destroyed through this film that I had to check at one stage that it was not directed by Roland Emmerich.)

This time though something big is afoot, something that Team America don’t have the personnel to deal with without outside help. So the boss of the group Spotswood conscripts Gary a brilliant stage actor to the team so that he might infiltrate the terrorist group and uncover their dastardly plot. But Gary isn’t middle eastern, he’s a white guy. No problem there, a couple of tufts of hair on his face and a monobrow and apparently he is unrecognisable.

Meanwhile it is actually North Korea’s Kim Jong Il (KJI) who is behind the shenanigans, and his plans are much larger than a simple bombing. To throw everyone off the trail KJI organises a massive concert event in Korea and invites all the major world leaders along as a gesture of peace. The entertainment is to be provided by members of the Film Actors Guild, or FAG (get it? Subtle, subtle stuff), whose numbers include Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn and MATT DAMONNNNN among others. Unbeknownst to almost everyone in attendance is that KJI plans to simultaneously use the event to distract the world leaders so he can cue a series of massive explosions all over the world and basically take them all hostage. He has also captured Team America and blown up their base.

Matt Damon

It is up to Gary to free the Team and save the day.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

All that sounds dumb enough to be amusing, but Team America is much more than that. There are songs galore, from the rockin’ America! Fuck Yeah! To the more low key and introspective Kim Jong Il crooned I’m so Ronery (lonely) and my favourite backing track to a training montage called… wait for it… Montage.

The sets are far more elaborate than you would think the standard puppet movie might warrant, and Matt and Trey have never been above the easy jokes at the puppets expense. The aftermath of Gary’s drinking binge is quite luridly and disgustingly depicted in its vomitous glory.

Meet the gang.

The action scenes are very well conceived and executed, even though this movie actually sets out to pull the piss from the Armageddon / Bad Boys genre of overblown flicks it does a good job of the overblown set pieces itself. Some things look cool enough that you forget you are watching a bunch of puppets.

Kim Jong Il is definitely not the sole butt of jokes in the film, the pretentiousness of many big name actors is highlighted frequently, and many of them meet very gruesome deaths onscreen, Michael Moore in particular cops a flogging.

But the best part of Team America is that the thing is funny and entertaining from start to finish.

I’ve always said that the best thing about learning something about world politics through watching the actions of puppets while they swear, have puppet sex and blow shit up – is that you can laugh along the way.

I think we should all think about that every day and the world might just be a better place.

Final Rating – 8 / 10. What’s not to like? Action, laughs, gunplay, romance, sex, music, profanity. And puppets.

About OGR

While I try to throw a joke or two into proceedings when I can all of the opinions presented in my reviews are genuine. I don't expect that all will agree with my thoughts at all times nor would it be any fun if you did, so don't be shy in telling me where you think I went wrong... and hopefully if you think I got it right for once. Don't be shy, half the fun is in the conversation after the movie.
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