"Team
America: World Police" shows the
rest of the world who is boss
By
Sinnie Chen
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Last
weekend at the box office "Team America:
World Police" ranked third on the
top 10 list by making $12.3 million. The
film cost around $20 million to produce,
which seems amazing, seeing as how the
film solely features marionettes. Most
of the money was spent on props and miniature
sets that were very realistic and detailed.
In
1999, Trey Parker and Matt Stones' "South
Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" opened
with $11.3 million at the box office,
and the cost to make that film was estimated
around $21 million.
Parker,
Stone and Pam Brady, the original writers
of "South Park," united again
to produce "Team America." To
reduce cost, director Parker invited his
friend Stone and together the two voiced
many of the characters in the movie.
The
movie was originally rated "NC-17,"
until they deleted a portion of the puppet
sex scenes to drop the rating down to
"R." "Team America"
cunningly uses classic scenes from action
movies such as "Pearl Harbor"
and "Top Gun" for a sense of
biting satire. Originally Parker and Stone's
idea was to do a version of "The
Day After Tomorrow" with puppets,
but due to legal issues they had to abandon
the idea and changed the movie into "Team
America."
Parker
and Stone use crude humor to insult Hollywood,
international politics, right-wing conservatives
and left-wing liberals with their animated
string puppets. In the movie, a team of
special forces that calls itself Team
America fights terrorists and tries to
stop them from destroying the world. With
Kim Jong Il's madness for world domination,
Team America must save the world before
Il carries out his diabolical plan.
Sean
Penn, angry over the film, wrote a letter
to Stone and Parker condemning them of
sending the wrong message to young people
by telling them there is no shame in remaining
apathetic about the political process
when, according to him, Stone and Parker
don't even realize what is happening around
the world.
The
language spoken by these puppets might
offend you or make you laugh hysterically.
This is not a serious film by any means;
it is just a satire of the current state
of the world. Though I found some of the
messages stereotypical and degrading towards
minorities, Americans, conservatives,
liberals, women, men and Hollywood I must
give Parker and Stone the benefit of the
doubt that they just wanted to mock our
society and break a few conventional rules
and standards for appropriateness. After
all, the movie is funny and humor sells.
While
my father was not too happy with the film
(he walked out during the middle of it),
there is no denying that this film is
clever and smart. The humor is pure Parker/Stone-esque,
and sometimes it seems as if a lot of
it came right out of the pages of "South
Park."
As
I said before, the film may be offensive,
but Parker's creativity and wit cannot
be denied. Besides, all of the miniature
recreations of such locations as the pyramids
of Giza, the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe
in France, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota,
the palace of Kim Jong Il in North Korea
and Manhattan in New York are intricately
detailed and gorgeous to look at. The
marionettes have many life-like features,
and it is easy to get drawn into the story
and come to think of them as actual actors.
Overall,
the film was well-made, and can be a relaxing
experience, especially during midterms,
to go to a movie theater and get lost
in the wacky and clever comedy of Parker,
Stone and Brady.
