2004
DIRECTOR: Trey Parker
AMERICA! F**K YEAH! The theme’s lyrics sum up this movie as well as any could have. Made in the midst of the War On Terror in 2004, a satire was needed and who better to provide one than the satirical genius’ Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for South Park. On the surface, this looks like a straight forward bawdy adult puppet parody, taking the mickey out of Bruckheimer’s blockbusters, Thunderbirds and the reputation being acquired by the U.S. over the past 30 years but reaching boiling point over the last decade, certainly in a post 9/11 world.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This is looking into every major aspect of the above, such as chauvinism, the political interference and undue, and sometimes dangerous influence of celebrities, summed up here with the Film Actor’s Guild (or F.A.G.) with a host of major film stars ripped off, notably upsetting Sean Penn. The infamous puppet sex scene, which is nothing more than a poke, pardon the pun, at the puppetry employed in the film.
But there’s so much more such as the excellent selection of bespoke songs, such as “Only A Woman” for the sex scene, “End Of An Act” as our hero leaves the group to wallow in self-pity to the song with features verse after verse nothing more than slagging off Michael Bay’s, Pearl Harbor and Ben Afleck! But for a film with criticises these blockbusters, it understands them too well to be truly nasty about them.
The entire film IS a well made Bruckheimer film, even recruiting one of his regular composers, Harry Gregson-Williams, to be in at the last-minute, to compose a great score, but why do this if they hated it so much? They don’t; they love these films and the affection for the genre is clear, making their digs enjoyable and not hurtful… There’s even a contradiction with the political tract as one hand this would seem to be an anti-American tome where Team America blow up every city and landmark imaginable in order to protect the world from the destruction of the Terrorists… Get it?
On the other, the song entitled “Freedom Isn’t Free” would seem to suggest that we should all do our part, even though this number ends with the line, “Freedom cost a buck o’five…” But then after all the political and social satire, and the spoofing of Hollywood’s gung-ho films, it’s just a fun film.
When the terrorist’s come from Derka Derkastan, the tone is clear. This is like a pair of boys playing “War On Terror” with a collection of action figures. They’re clearly laughing hysterically as they write, produce and direct this film like two teenagers, as they create the highly insensitive language of the terrorists, use elements from films such as Star Wars and James Bond, certainly as for Kim Jong-il, is nobody safe, well not after offending the North Korean leader, but in all fairness, this is really just Eric Cartman from South Park.
But in the end, this is the perfect satire, with a blend of real world political and social commentary, great spoofing but when all’s said and done, this has a great sense if humour, though at times, somewhat bawdy. This is brilliant and one of, if not the best comedy of the past decade, and one of the greatest satires of all time. And, no, I don’t believe that I’m over stating that…
[...] TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, 10/10 [...]
[...] The pacing is fast, the plotting is ludicrous and John Travolta is defiantly on form as the terrorist/patriot. But when you’ve got a scene where Hugh Jackman, a top-notch programmer, is forced to crack the Defence mainframe in 60 seconds whilst receiving a blow job, you kind of find yourself thinking back or forward, since it was made later, to 2004′s Team America: World Police! [...]
[...] life and to do so in a very funny way. It’s strange that with films like this and the earlier Team America: World Police (2004), that Michael Bay’s action films can be spoofed without actually changing that much. [...]
[...] life and to do so in a very funny way. It’s strange that with films like this and the earlier Team America: World Police (2004), that Michael Bay’s action films can be spoofed without actually changing that much. [...]
[...] with a similar joke to the marionette gag from Team America: World Police (2004), the first Adventure Of Tintin begins its adventure in Belgium. We meet our intrepid reporter, [...]
[...] Since Iron Man in 2008, The Avenger’s franchise has been building up momentum and this is the final act before the big one. Captain America, possibly one of the hardest sells in the comic world these days, is in the hands of Joe Johnson. The tone is good, set in World War II, in a setting where abject patriotism isn’t out-of-place, whilst not making the character a cliché as such, and not falling into the trap laid by Team America: World Police (2004). [...]