I’ll say this much for “Team America: World Police,” it’s the funniest all-marionette film this critic has ever seen. The disappointing news is, this ambitious offering from “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker isn’t as consistently smart or amusing as t h e irrever-e n t d u o ’ s TV series or their previous forays into feature filmdom, “Orgazmo” and “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” The satire is surprisingly bland — even misdirected — and the humor so blunt that even Cartman, Stan and crew might find it too base … maybe. Parker, who directed, takes a great deal of pleasure in what amounts to an orgy of puppet destruction — and, yes, that’s as funny as it sounds — but the verbal gags are almost always dropped with so many F-bombs that the jokes blow themselves up.
Team America is a macho international police force that trots the globe battling evildoers such as Kim Jong Il, whose puppet likeness repeatedly voices his intention to rule the entire world. To infiltrate the terrorist network, Team America enlists Broadway star Gary Johnston to go undercover, using his acting gifts for a higher cause. Others, real actors, aren’t featured in nearly as good a light, as thesps Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon are gleefully skewered here for their outspoken antiwar views. The filmmakers’ apparent intent is to take the piss out of Hollywood stars who take themselves too seriously, but I can’t help but feel that in the process they’re taking the Iraq war, and its very real human cost, too lightly. (Rated R for graphic, crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language; all involving puppets. Running time: 98 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 15, 2004. Read the original PDF.