Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police is born of the same creators of South Park but executed with marionettes and a slightly more diverse sense of humour.

The movie follows Team America, a Thunderbirds-style outfit whose job it is to keep the world in order. The plot sees a Broadway actor, Gary Johnston, being recruited by the team to go undercover and uncover a plot involving weapons of mass destruction using his acting skills.

Like Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s other great work South Park, the movie is, to a fair extent, based on irreverently shocking people but it doesn’t rely on it half as much as you might expect - which means that it can appeal, at least in parts, to a much wider audience. There is still plenty of crude humour, if that’s what you’re looking for. In fact, a repeated analogy about the relationships between various genitalia and bodily functions was not only funny but quite clever, all things considered.

A large source of amusement comes from the use of the puppets themselves. A sex scene between Gary and another member of the team raises one of the biggest laughs of the movie. Their jerky movements and obvious strings make them come across as even less believable than their Thunderbirds counterparts but this is totally intentional and Stone and Parker make full use of its entertainment value. The novelty value wears off fairly early on in the film, but again there are enough different types of humour to keep the audience entertained.

Despite being known for not pulling punches, a reputation that most of the movie adheres to, Parker and Stone for some reason decided to leave George W Bush completely unscathed. In a movie which criticises the war on terror and its ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ approach, it’s a little disappointing that its leader failed to get the (dis?)respect he deserves. In fact the movie has a pop at Michael Moore instead. That said, there is still a fair element of criticism to be getting on with, such as quoting every location featured by its distance from the all-important America. Seeing a military outfit called ‘Team America’ inadvertently yet indifferently destroying the Eiffel Tower and the Sphinx in pursuit of their aims and later declaring “We have lost intelligence, I repeat, we have no intelligence??? particularly hit the mark.

Like South Park, there is a spattering of celebrities who get it in the neck for no real reason. Generally though, apart from looking and sounding and different from each other, there’s little to essentially set the featured stars apart from one another – they’re mostly just a homogenous group. When they do have characteristics, such as Matt Damon saying nothing but his own name, the reason behind them is confusing or they are tiring – perhaps both. The treatment of the impersonated doesn’t come across as malicious, though Sean Penn apparently wrote to Stone and Parker to voice his disapproval.

The final source of entertainment in Team America is in its soundtrack which is invariably excellent. Songs such as 'Freedom Isn’t Free' and 'America – F**k Yeah' complement the movie perfectly. The tunes are pretty catchy and the lyrics are superb.

There may be a handful of instances in the movie where there’s supposed to be a laugh but then you wonder if you should. For example, the first time we see Johnston he is in a Broadway musical, Lease, singing Everybody Has AIDS. This raises a laugh, but an uncomfortable one. In another scene an explosion causes a flood which brings a scene of puppet corpses floating about in water. This scene was obviously produced a long while before Boxing Day, but its inclusion in the movie now seems a little inappropriate and insensitive.

In Team America: World Police, Stone and Parker have delivered what South Park fans will be looking for but have also proved that they are not one-trick ponies by throwing other types of gags and satire into the blend as well. It will still not be to everyone’s taste but for those who are not easily offended and don’t want to think too much about what they’re watching it’s definitely worth a go.