Team America: World Police

Boy oh boy I wanted to like 2004's TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE.  I consider myself a big fan of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, of course best known for South Park.  I was even forgiving of BASEKETBALL.  This time, a sound idea succeeds only as a vehicle through which to frame the story, not in the actual attempted delivery of satire.  At least not all of the time.  Or even most.  Huh?

 

Parker and Stone decided to tell their story an American counter-terrorist team (whose HQ is inside Mount Rushmore) via the use of electronic marionettes, the kind seen on the '60s TV show Thunderbirds. A crack team of experts who recruit a Broadway actor to help them thwart a new threat to the free world.   It's an amusing notion that grows tedious within minutes.  It might've helped if the script was funny.   The guys (co-writing with Pam Brady) spent quite a while concocting this parody of Jerry Bruckheimer type action spectacles, which also takes aim at global American politics in the George W. Bush era.  But Hollywood liberals who fancy themselves expert mouthpieces and goodwill ambassadors are also grilled mercilessly.  It sounds can't miss.

But it does.  It tries.  Occasionally, an idea works.  Most of the successful humor comes out of the awkwardness of those damned puppets.  How they walk, fight, and uh, get intimate.  You've probably heard about that scene.  Can't deny the entertainment there, but as with the rest of the film the vulgarity is heavy handed.  The climactic speech, repeated after being heard in a bar earlier in the movie, is a perfect example.  It thinks it's clever, but it's just crude.   The go for broke crassness of SOUTH PARK, BIGGER,  LONGER, AND UNCUT just doesn't fly here.  Maybe all the good dirty jokes had already been told?

And unlike that earlier film, the musical numbers are quite lame.  After you've heard "America! Fuck yeah!" a dozen times, it's just ponderous.  I did like the tune that spoofs movie montages.  Kim Jong Il's ballad "I'm Ronely" is a pale imitation of Saddam Hussein's "Up There." And a song about (the awfulness of ) PEARL HARBOR? C'mon guys.

The Hollywood actors are portrayed by puppets made to resemble Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, George Clooney, Helen Hunt, Matt Damon, and several others.  Their misguided piety is ruthlessly lampooned, but not in any imaginative fashion.   An easy target that the guys somehow botched.   

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE will assume some postscript in film history for a few reasons, but isn't distinguished (or funny) enough for the Comedy Pantheon.  The effects and production design are aces.  Surprisingly meticulous.  Very impressive.   Took time.  I also read that the script took two years.  Maybe that part was overthought.