Team America: World Police
Originally Written: October 2004
Talk about Shock & Awe.
Long after the credits started to roll on this jokey action thriller from Trey Parker & Matt Stone (the same deranged comic geniuses behind TV’s “South Park,” cinema’s “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” (the best movie musical in years), and “Orgazmo,” who also starred in the underrated sports movie spoof “BASEketball”), I’m still in shock of what I saw when Parker and Stone- with the help of rebel producer Scott Rudin (“School of Rock,” “The Hours,” “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” the forthcoming “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”)- got a hold of some marionettes to make a spoof of the big-budget, explosion-laden action blockbusters that have taken over Hollywood, and in awe of the utter cluelessness that must have beset the MPAA when they approved the movie for an R rating shortly before sneak previews. What the fuck were they thinking?
I don’t know how they’ve done it, but Parker and Stone have forged a career by not playing by the rules of the studios that finance their films and TV show (“South Park” is owned by Warner Bros., “Bigger, Longer & Uncut” and “Team America” are Paramount, “BASEketball” was Universal; only “Orgazmo” was an indie). From the second you saw your first episode of “South Park,” you knew you weren’t watching “safe” television, or another “Simpsons” clone. Like “The Simpsons,” “South Park” is satire, but as opposed to the sly subtlety of Homer and co., the four irreverent children of the crudely-animated “Park” bulldoze through sacred cows and up-to-the-minute pop culture. Never has this been more true than in “Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” where they left the bleeps of television behind and shattered political correctness for the sake of a foul-mouthed and razor-sharp indictment on censorship, hypocracy, overblown rightousness, parental responsibility, and rash judgement fueled by paranoia that featured profane- and profoundly funny- songs, a homosexual relationship between Satan- cast as the put-upon party in the relationship- and Saddam Hussein, and a plot that not only captured the anxiety of the moment in 1999 about the influence of movies on the young, but also remains strangely relevent today. If that doesn’t make it one of the greatest movies of all-time (which I feel it is), I don’t know what makes a great movie.
For an encore to such subversive brilliance, Parker and Stone couldn’t have come up with a better idea. “Team America” is wicked anarchic entertainment, and the most dementedly funny movie since Peter Jackson’s “Meet the Feebles” changed the way I look at Muppets for all-time (yeah, I said the same thing about “Shaun of the Dead,” but this goes even further).
So what’s the plot already? Have you ever seen a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie? Since he’s done the likes of “Top Gun,” “The Rock,” “Armageddon,” and “Pearl Harbor,” it’s a good guess that you have. It’s kind of like that…with marionettes. Hell, its’ even got the requisite bombastic score by the film scoring studio Media Ventures; more specifically, Harry Gregson-Williams, who not only mocks his own style of scoring but also writes a damn fine bit of action music (though I still would have loved to hear Marc Shaiman- “Bigger, Longer & Uncut’s” sly maestro- take on the genre; wonder what happened there). Team America- whose members are Joe, Chris, Carson, Lisa, and Sarah, who are given orders by Spotswood- is a covert operation running out of Mount Rushmore, fighting the war on terrorism wherever terrorists might be found with Weapons of Mass Destruction. After a successful mission in Paris- which actually destroys more cultural landmarks than terrorists, but we’ll get to that later, and finds Carson dead- the team must recruit a new member who can infiltrate the terrorists and learn where a massive terrorist plot is set to happen, and who is in charge of it. Enter Gary, a double major in theater and world languages who is first seen in a production of “Lease” singing about how everyone has AIDS (that’s a spoof on the acclaimed musical “Rent,” by the way).
Can he make his way into the terrorists confidence to find out what they have up their sleeves? Can Team America handle the ridicule of the Film Actors Guild (or FAG) and Michael Moore, and just do their job? Will Team America’s leader Joe make his feelings for Sarah known before she reveals her love for Gary? Can Lisa love again after the death of Carson in Paris? Will Gary be able make the decisions that could save the world? Will Gary be up for the challenge? Can Spotswood trust Gary enough, if you know what I mean? (I assure you that you don’t.) Will Chris put his irrational hatred of actors behind him to get behind Gary, if you know what I mean? (No, I don’t mean that you sickos!) Will you care about any of this, or will you be laughing too hard to care, or offended so much you walk out?
Like “Bigger, Longer, & Uncut,” “Team America” works on two levels. The first is the obvious one- as political satire. What side of the War on Terror do Stone and Parker come out on? I think they’re for the war, but what they’re against is the seeming recklessness with which the Bush Administration has waged it. Evidence on that front comes in the opening action sequence in Paris and a later one in Cairo, where there’s more collateral damage than actual damage to terrorists, but because the terrorists are dead, the mission is a success. I also think they’re against self-rightious celebrities like Michael Moore, Sean Penn (who’s already bitched about the film), Alec Baldwin, and Susan Sarandon who think they can speak intelligently on all things political. This point of view- I wager- will be less offensive to the general public, if not by the celebrities who are spoofed (even Michael Moore fans have to enjoy the absurdity of Parker and Stone’s characature). Can’t say I blame them in a lot of cases.
There’s another level, however, where “Team America: World Police” really works, and is a perfect addition to Parker and Stone’s filmmography. That’s as a spoof of those type of big-budget action movies I mentioned from Jerry Bruckheimer earlier. You’ve got the large-scale set pieces (kudos to cinematographer Bill Pope, making the most of an unlikely change-of-pace from “The Matrix” trilogy and “Spider-Man 2” and making the movie look great). You’ve got the chart-topping- if there’s any justice- pop-rock soundtrack (if rock anthem “America, Fuck Yeah!” or power ballad “Pearl Harbor Sucked, and I Miss You” (known on the soundtrack album as “The End of an Act”) don’t get nominated for Oscars- especially this year (when nothing’s emerged a favorite)- the Academy should just do away with Best Original Song for good). You’ve got the conflicted hero. You’ve got the gratuitous night of passion between Gary and Lisa (uh, more on that in a minute). You’ve got the heroic rescue mission at the end. You’ve got the promise of a better tomorrow. And of course, you’ve got the over-the-top villain in North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, who not only resembles a Bond villain and “Uncut’s” Saddam Hussein in demeanor as he plans “9/11 times 2,356” (which is 2,146,316 by the way), but also sounds remarkably like Eric Cartman, and has his own ballad (“I’m Ronery” will bring fond memories of Satan’s “Up There” from “Uncut”). I know where my vote for Best Villain for next year’s MTV Movie Awards is going. After sticking it to sports movie cliches in “BASEketball” (which they didn’t write or direct, but still carries their anarchic spirit), superhero movies and porn in “Orgazmo” (is this EVER coming out on DVD?), and musicals in “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” the boys have upped the ante by skewering the most ridiculous movie genre yet in “Team America: World Police,” but their aim’s as sharp as ever.
Now, about that love scene. The MPAA gave “Team America: World Police” an R rating for “graphic, crude, and sexual humor, violent images, and strong language, all involving puppets.” It was hard fought for as well; the movie reportedly got an NC-17 9 times before the MPAA relented and gave into an R. That doesn’t mean it deserved it (the theatrical cut is still raunchy enough, violent enough, and profane enough to merit an NC-17- you’ve never seen a puppet vomit this much onscreen). What changed for the change in rating? The sex, folks. Little lesson I’ve learned about the MPAA, gentle readers- you can blow up as many people- be they real, CGI, or made of wood- as you want, but show two people in the physical act or love- real, CGI, or made of wood- in any detail, and they’ll slap you with an NC-17 faster than you can say “hard-core puppet fuckin’.” And boy is that what’s happening in this movie. The scene is like a course in hard-core porn for those of us who don’t watch it; that or a combination of the most graphic sex scenes ever in mainstream movies (FYI, it’s more graphic than anything in “Orgazmo,” which WAS rated NC-17). And all without a single scene of penetration. I shudder to think what was forced on the cutting room floor (the puppet-on-puppet penetration I know was among the casulties), but I’ll definitely be checking it out on the “inebitable”- or inevitable if you’re NOT Trey and Matt’s Kim Jong Il- “Unrated Cut” DVD, because hey, it’s not the most unsettling love scene I’ve watched in a movie (for that, watch Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler abuse some animal crackers in “Armageddon”). Plus, Gary and Lisa have bodies that look to have been chisled to perfection by a power greater than they, so they are easy on the eyes.
But then again, they are puppets.
The way I see it, Trey Parker and Matt Stone- who belong in that relatively small band of filmmakers who are propping the sorry and unfunny comedy genre up right now- had three goals in “Team America.” The first was to ridicule Bruckheimer action epics. It succeeds so well doing that it’s better than most of the producer’s own movies. The second was to criticize Bush and co.’s recklessness in their approach to the War on Terror. Again, mission accomplished. Finally, in their own words, they wanted to “fuck up some puppets.” One look at the dead puppets at their staging of a terrorist attack at the Panama canal (you’ve never seen so many dead bodies floating in the water since “Titanic”), you know Trey and Matt has succeeded where others dare not to go.
God bless them for it, ’cause we need them now more than ever.
