movie review - Team America: World Police
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
This movie was one of the greatest disappointments I've had at the cinema since... well, since the first Star Wars prequel, I guess.
This movie had a lot of irritating bits, but one of them was really inexcusable. It wasn't the boringly incessant demonization of movie stars (some of whom, noticeably, this movie's creators have collaborated with in the past), or the frankly dumb recurring bits with the boss demanding oral sex from the action hero or the belaboured them of "We're all dicks, pussies, or assholes". What bothered me about this was the outright recycling of quite a bit of work from the South Park TV show. I hope these guys haven't run out of ideas, but having seen things like the 'montage' sequence - right down to re-using the song - in a movie after having seen it in their show was a surprising let-down. And it wasn't just the montage bit. The characters all sounded just like South Park people, the characterizations were all pretty much identical, and the choice of semi-purposeful hammed-up pseudo-animation was very much the same as the 'paper' animation of the TV show. The only difference was that the undercurrents of humour and warmth from the show were missing in this movie, leaving only the nastiness and vulgarity.
Not recommended.