Featuring the voices of: Trey Parker, Elle Russ, Stanley G. Sawicki, Matt Stone
Director: Trey Parker
Producers: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Screenplay: Pam Brady, Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Cinematography: Bill Pope
Music: Harry Gregson-Williams
U.S. Distributor: Paramount Pictures
I felt about Team America the way I felt about many of the Monty Python episodes that didn't work: good try, some funny and clever ideas, but not really worth the time. In fact, Team America's problem really is one of time. This superhero satire, which has lots of serious, semi-serious, and not-at-all-serious things to say about the current state of the world, is about an hour longer than it needs to be. There's roughly 30 minutes of good stuff in Team America… but that leaves more than an hour of sub-par filler. As a result, this movie is more of a curiosity than a fully formed motion picture. It will have adherents, to be sure, but I am not among them.
My feelings about this movie and its creators, the South Park team of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are closer to admiration than appreciation. Like South Park, Team America has plenty of edge, but "edge" doesn't necessarily equate to "entertainment." The conceit of using puppets (much as was done in the British TV series "Thunderbirds") rather than conventional animation for this movie seems like a stroke of brilliance, but the effectiveness of the technique wears off too quickly. The filmmakers' decision to allow us to see the strings (rather than have them digitally erased) emphasizes the campy satirical bent of the production. (Those who really want to read deeply into things can draw parallels between the string pullers and the real-life people in power.)
Team America opens with a wonderfully sly sequence set in Paris. Terrorists have arrived in the City of Lights, and one of them is carrying a WMD. Never fear, though - Team America is here! The five-member squad arrives just in time to stop the turban-wearing bad guys. They succeed, but at a price: one of the group is killed. Oh, and the Eiffel Tower and Louvre are destroyed. Regrettable, but necessary. In war, after all, there will always be collateral damage. And the important thing is that the terrorist cell is eliminated.
Back at the Mount Rushmore base, which is reached through the mouth of George Washington, the remaining Team Americans and their leader, Spottswoode, must choose a replacement for their dearly departed. Spottswoode picks Gary, a Broadway actor, because he believes a thespian will have a better chance of infiltrating terrorist networks than any member of his current crew. Gary's ascension to Team America's ranks results in unexpected sparks and friction. The two women, Sarah and Lisa, are both attracted to Gary, while Chris is openly hostile. Joe remains on the sidelines (appropriate for an ex-athlete), quietly pining for one of the women.
The film's structure openly mocks the modern-day, Jerry Bruckheimer-inspired action genre. Team America has everything a Bruckheimer film contains: over-the-top action, emotionless romance, lots of music, fake and/or cheesy character bonding moments, and plenty of pyrotechnics. In some ways, the film's political messages are subservient to its desire to undermine the big-budget formula. One of the reasons Team America occasionally seems empty-headed is because that's the point. Take the screenplay, smooth out some of the openly satirical elements, and re-write it for live actors, and wouldn't Bruckheimer (or someone like him) be interested?
So, from a political standpoint, what is Team America saying? Although it never mentions George Bush, the idea of Americans as "World Police" is right out of the current administration's doctrine. There is, of course, a widely held belief around the globe that the U.S. government's tunnel vision breeds an insensitivity to outside concerns. (Hence the scenes in which our heroes are lauded at home for killing the terrorists even though two cities - Paris and Cairo - are virtually destroyed in the process.) Stone and Parker can't be accused of picking sides, however. They turn Michael Moore into a gluttonous, babbling idiot who becomes a suicide bomber. And a cadre of high-profile Hollywood political activists ("can't take a joke" types like Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, etc.) are established as out-of-touch egomaniacs. (Although most of the puppets don't look like the individuals they are supposed to be representing, and the voice impressions are laughably bad - why not hire Rich Little?)
Conceptually, Team America sounds like a "can't miss." But it does miss. Satire is a tricky thing. Because the characters are inevitably the butt of the movie's jokes, empathy is difficult. So the movie has to find something else to keep us involved. That usually involves non-stop comedy - the harder the audience members laugh, the less they care that the characters are cardboard and the story is pointless. Team America has some very funny moments: the opening sequence in Paris, a kinky sex scene (which looks like Barbie and Ken dolls humping, and originally got the film an NC-17, if you can believe it), a number of blistering musical numbers (including "Pearl Harbor Sucked and I Miss You" and a meditation on the montage), and a meeting between Kim Jong Il and Hans Blix. And I'll admit to laughing hardest during the vomit-to-top-all-movie-vomiting scene, in which a character throws up contents in excess of his body weight. (I was recalling the Mr. Creosote sketch from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.)
Yet, after sitting through all 100 minutes of Team America, I felt let down. I didn't laugh enough. When the movie ended, I shifted into an intellectual mode, thinking about the filmmakers' "courage" and "willingness not to compromise" as ways to blunt my disappointment. Compared to the South Park movie, this was a significant step down. Parker and Stone want us to believe their movie is more cutting edge than it is, and, by thinking that, we're less likely to question why the experience is so strangely unsatisfying.
© 2004 James Berardinelli