Let me start by saying I think Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was genius.
Let me also say that South Park, the series, although inconsistent, is one of the rare shows on television that can make me laugh out loud.
But I just got done watching Team America: World Police on television, and it was horrible. It was offensive, boring, and stupid, but, most importantly, it was not funny. I can handle offensive, some of the funniest things are offensive to someone. But it was boring, stupid and I laughed out loud only once, in the montage scene. Other than that, it was literally painful to watch, since I really like Stone and Parker. But this was like watching Michaelangelo paint dogs playing poker, or Meryl Steep doing porn.
Am I getting too old? Am I missing something? Or was it really as bad as I think it is?
I thought it had some very funny moments as a parody of action movies, but as a political commentary… meh. Although I think Parker and Stone’s attempts at politics are always that way.
I think Team America is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. The whole movie is hilarious.
But what I really wanted to ask was, did Meryl Streep really do porn? Have you got a link to that, Hamlet? I’d love to see her and Natascha McElhone playing freaky sisters in a porno! WOOT!
I pretty much felt the same way. Even the jokes that were vaguely funny the first time around were replayed, stretched, squeezed, beaten, lit afire, doused with acid, kicked, buried, dug up, run through the sewer system, and dried under a high school cafeteria heat lamp until they were about as amusing as a tax form. I didn’t even find it particularly offensive or outrageous, save for the extent of particularly unfunny bodily fluids humor; it was just dumb. South Park can be kind of dumb, too, but at least it manages enough humor and outrage to justify its running time.
But in fairness, the coworker I went to go see it with thought it was the funniest movie he’d seen all year. Of course, he also thought Goodfellas was boring and confusing so…it takes all kinds, I guess.
The only time “Team America” isn’t funny is the 20th time you watch it. Up until then, it’s hilarious. I’ll wait a few months before screening it again and I expect it’ll be funny all over again.
For me it was the songs that I liked. The “Montage” song was brilliant, and “America- Fuck Yeah” is great too. And the song about the movie Pearl Harbor and how much it sucked.
Other than that, I thought the movie was bad, bad, bad. And boring. I liked Cannibal and Orgazmo and even Baseketball. But Team America was bad.
Oh god, how I loved this movie. Did you see the director’s cut? With that scene in all its glory? And did you not howl at Kim Jong-Il singing, “I’m So Ronery”? (The DVD extras have some fascinating information about the set design, btw.) Did you sit stonefaced during the vomiting-in-the-alley scene?
I still can’t see a fighter plane fly overhead without going, America: Fuck Yeah!
The sex scene just went on and on and on. And just when I thought it couldn’t go anywhere… squish came the ending. I laughed out loud at that. Rest of the movie was boring as hell.
“America- fuck yeah!” doesn’t hold a candle to most of their other songs. If I’m going to hum something it will be “What would Brian Boitano do?”
I agree completely with the original poster. I love the South Park Movie (and hope they make another one!) and more often than not I like or really like the South Park TV show. But I don’t think I laughed once at Team America. Awful.
I thought it was hilarious. I saw it with a very left wing friend and we were both in hysterics. The songs, the panthers, the face-off parody, the location tags: brilliant. Better than a lot of recent South Park, I.M.O.
“Who are you!?”
“I’m a terrorist. Anyone know of any terrorist attacks coming up? 'cause, uh, I’d really like to get in on that!”
