Team America: World Police

Exploding tourist landmarks and idiotic romantic triangles! Remorseless civilian casualties and bad WMD intelligence! Cartoonishly villainous terrorists! Sanctimonious actors blaming America for the world's ills! Michael Moore blowing up Mount Rushmore! If nothing else, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have made sure that this marionette mockery of action movies and testosterone-fed ethnocentricity is an equal-opportunity offender. But these are no Thunderbirds string-dolls with stiff limbs and no facial expressions: they're high-tech--and anatomically correct. Frequently hilarious just because it's so absurd, Team America features a squadron of on-call puppet heroes who fly around the world fighting puppet terrorists who wear puppet turbans and make puppet threats against puppet freedom. A snarky lampoon of Hollywood tripe and current world events, this flick isn't nearly as sharp or clandestinely astute as it should have been--given the history of its ambitious creators--but while the comedy is even more scattershot than the puppet machine gun fire, Parker and Stone earn many gasps and guffaws by being gross (a won't-believe-your-eyes puppet barf scene), graphic (a won't-believe-your-eyes puppet sex scene) and very, very politically incorrect. A strong optional purchase. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen R-rated versions or a widescreen unrated version, DVD extras include the production featurettes “Team America: An Introduction” (5 min.), “Building the World” (13 min.), “Crafting the Puppets” (8 min.), “Pulling the Strings” (10 min.), “Capturing the Action” (7 min.), “Miniature Pyrotechnics” (5 min.), “Up Close with Kim Jong-Il” (5 min.), “Dressing Room Test” (2 min.), and “Puppet Test” (4 min.), as well as six animated storyboard segments (10 min.), 10 deleted/extended scenes with outtakes (6 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a fun extras package for a hit-and-miss satire.] (R. Blackwelder)