Team America: World Police

Back in 2004, I used to write movie reviews for the USM student newspaper, the "Student Printz". Because I occasionally feel lazy, and it seems a shame that all of five people ever read these, I've decided to repost them here, in the original versions that I emailed to my editor, Noel, all those years ago.

The Hollywood action film is about to get a major overhaul, done with: wood. “Team America: World Police” is an insanely funny movie by the creators of “South Park” and done entirely with wood constructed marionettes. The movie takes the action genre, which over the years has degenerated into shallow productions, and sets it against a politically minded plot to create movie that is everything it promises to be and more.

“Team America: World Police” follows the exploits of Team America, a group of globetrotting adventurers who travel the world fighting terrorism, capturing weapons of mass destruction, and destroying practically everything in sight. The story begins with the recruitment of Gary Johnston (voiced by Trey Parker), a Broadway actor who is recruited by Team America to help them infiltrate a terrorist organization in the Middle East. Even though their mission is a success, the terrorists pull of an attack on Panama Canal and it becomes obvious that there is a larger terrorist plot at work. To make matters worse, Team America’s actions are protested by the Film Actor’s Guild, their secret headquarters in Mount Rushmore come under protest, and most of the team is taken hostage by the true terrorist mastermind: Kim Jong Il.

Undoubtedly, anyone who is a fan of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s previous work like “Baseketball”, “South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut”, or “Orgazmo” will find this movie to be nothing less than hysterical. The movie was not only written by the duo, but also directed, produced, performed, and every song but two was written and performed by Trey Parker. The use of marionettes allows the movie to take full comic advantage and do something very original. The movie makes it completely obvious that strings control these characters: one of the first fight scenes features hand to hand combat where the two puppets just jiggle around next to each other. Additionally, since every character is made of wood, the opportunity to have people detonate or melt away is relished in every scene.

What this movie really has to offer is what it says about Hollywood and action movies in general. Originally Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s idea was to create a marionette version of “The Day After Tomorrow” and release it on the same day as its live action counterpart. Although legal matters prevented this, they decided the idea was good enough to warrant a movie that shows just how shallow and interchangeable action movies are. The entire movie is actually meant to satire the use (or over-use as the case often is) of CGI and lame special effects as a crutch for good acting and a decent plot in movies. By using wooden marionettes, they have an enormous amount of flexibility in creating an nearly typical action movie, yet making it different enough to be downright amazing. The movie also takes the opportunity to make some interesting statements about the political atmosphere in America. Instead of seeing a ‘politician’ in the movie, the only political statements are made by characters meant to be Hollywood stars. Additionally, the entire movie is presented as being ethnically unconscious, for example, every location is presented as being a certain distance from America.

“Team America: World Police”, is an incredibly hilarious film, quite possibly the funniest movie to come out all year. Despite the limitations of wooden puppets as the only actors, the movie is an extremely successful satire of not only action movies, but also the political atmosphere. “Team America: World Police” may be crude at some times, but there really is no substitution for good comedy.