In 2004 when Team America: World Police was released, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were already well established in the film industry as the guys who created South Park. They had even dipped their toes into doing live action films like Orgazmo and BASEketball, but what the industry knew them for was their animated series South Park that began back in 1997 and is still going strong on Comedy Central. The duo isn’t afraid to take chances, whether it’s insulting celebrities (after all, part of their charm is being equal opportunity offenders) or creating their musical for the stage, The Book of Mormon, so was it a big surprise they’d want to do an action adventure film entirely with puppets? The film is very much a parody of the action films of the 90’s and early 00’s that were produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. In case you are unfamiliar with his name, he produced the mega hits like Top Gun, The Rock, Con-Air, and Pearl Harbor. But what this film was also tapping into was the over-the-top patriotic attitudes that the media projected. I mean, everything needed to be patriotic in a post 9-11 world. Not that there is anything wrong with patriotism, but with the amount of people that were cashing in on it, looking back, well, you can see where it wouldn’t be too hard to parody the country. Then you throw in how many believed our country was getting involved in global issues we had no business being in; well, it’s no surprise where the title “World Police” came from. This film showed that Parker and Stone were not afraid to take some major political swings, but at the same time they wanted people to be able to laugh at the absurdity of it all, because that’s just who they are. Needless to say, if you are easily offended, this movie is not for you.
Team America is a group of elite fighters who have their secret base hidden within Mount Rushmore, like something you’d see out of some old James Bond film. Spottswoode (voiced by Daran Norris) leads the group and hands out the missions like a hybrid of Mr. Phelps from Mission Impossible and Bosley from Charlie’s Angels. In the opening scene we meet the team, the all-American former quarterback, Joe (voiced by Trey Parker), the martial arts expert, Chris (voiced by Matt Stone), the psychologist, Lisa (voiced by Kristen Miller), the psychic/empath, Sarah (voiced by Masasa Moyo), and then there’s Carson (also voiced by Parker); they’ve come to Paris to stop a terrorist attack … by stopping this really means shoot and kill everyone and destroy the city in the process (you know, like we’re used to seeing superheroes do in every battle they have). In the process, Carson is killed, which leaves an opening on the team.
Spottswoode travels to New York to recruit Gary (also voiced by Parker). He’s a Broadway actor who they want to use as a spy to infiltrate terrorist groups … I should also mention that Gary has one of the funnier introductions to the film by doing a musical number “Everyone Has Aids”, a song in the Broadway production of Lease (obviously a parody of Rent). At this point in the film you are either on board with the absurdity or you should just totally walk away, because it only gets more crude and absurd as the film goes on.
My favorite thing about this film is the villain, Kim Jong-Il (voiced by you guessed it, Trey Parker).The real-life dictator was pretty much a real-life parody already with all his quirks, as though his goal in life was to be a James Bond villain from the Roger Moore years, but Parker and Stone manage to ratchet up the ridiculousness and create my favorite comedic villain (at least right behind Dr. Evil). In the film Jong-Il is in charge of the middle-eastern terrorists as well as the Hollywood elites in the Film Actors Guild. This eventually leads to some hilarious parodies of many well-known celebrities.
My biggest complaint about the film is that you know exactly where they are going with it because they are following every action trope we’ve seen in action films. The film is extremely self-aware, even having a montage training sequence to a song called “Montage”. That doesn’t mean the film isn’t funny or entertaining; it just makes the rewatch value not as high for me, because really I feel I’m only watching it for the jokes, some of which lose their shock value after a second viewing.
What is actually incredible is the puppetry work and the production design for the film. To do the puppet work they brought in the Chiodo brothers, best known for their puppets, animatronics, and stop-motion work in films like Critters and Killer Klowns From Outer Space. The work the crew did to bring this to life is impressive since most of the effects are done in camera and just about all practical, which is basically unheard of today. Then the extra cherry on top is that to makes this film look good they hired Bill Pope to do the cinematography. He’s best known for shooting The Matrix films, Baby Driver, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
This is genuinely a one-of-a-kind film even if it is a parody of a genre most film enthusiasts are very familiar with. After twenty years since the film’s release I’m glad we haven’t gotten a sequel, but I kind of hope one day Trey Parker and Matt Stone attempt another puppetry film again, because they do know what they are doing, and I feel they’d only make it better.
Video
Team America: World Police is presented in a slightly altered original aspect ratio of 2.40:1 from an original 2.39:1. The film doesn’t benefit a ton in this upgrade to UHD. It’s intended to be somewhat crude, but unlike the animated elements of South Park, here you do get to see a little more of the detail of these miniature sets, which provide far more than the puppets themselves. There’s a fair amount of detail here, and this is about as close as you’re going to get. Colors pretty much pop. Black levels are pretty deep, and there is some shadow definition that also feeds into the set details. Some of the CG stuff is exposed as pretty crude, but again, it’s a 20-year-old puppet comedy film.
Audio
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track delivers everything it needs to. Subs give you a pretty good tumble during the explosions and action scenes. Dialog comes through, and it sounds a lot like the voices from South Park, for good reason. The music might be a little too amped and tends to cover everything else happening during the songs, but I suspect that’s pretty much the intent. It’s all clean and clear, so you’ll get pretty much all you need and perhaps a little bit more.
Special Features
The extras are found on The Blu-ray copy disc only
Team America: An Introduction (5:10) Trey Parker and Matt Stone discuss their motivations for making the film.
Building the World: (12:41) The production designer discusses what it was like creating the sets and world for the film along with the creative materials they used to design the props. There is a lot of BTS footage from the sets made for the film.
Crafting the Puppets: (8:00) This gets into the work that was done to create all the puppets in the film.
Pulling the Strings: (10:08) Here we get an interview with the famous Chiodo brothers who did the marionette work for the film.
Capturing the Action: (6:43) An interview with BTS footage with Bill Pope, the director of photography, about why he was eager to go from filming The Matrix to a film with puppets. As a fan of his work, it was nice to get a glimpse into his process with the camera.
Miniature Pyrotechnics: (4:50) Another cool glimpse at how they did several of the destruction sequences in the film. Honestly wish this one was longer, because it was fun seeing how they pulled off these effects practically.
Up Close With Kim Jong-Il: (5:10) Here we get to see the difficulties the crew had with bringing Jong-Il to life.
Dressing Room Test: (2:04) A scene when Gary was being recruited for the team early on in the film. Most likely done to see how well they could pull off the puppet work. There is no introduction to this to explain what it was used for.
Puppet Test: (4:09) This is raw footage of what looks like an early rehearsal with using the puppets for the film.
Deleted/Extended Scenes and Outtakes: (5:56) There’s 10 scenes total that you have the option to hit “Play all” with. There really isn’t anything that impacts the plot, though in a couple of scenes we get a brief glimpse at the BTS work going on.
Animated Storyboards: There are six scenes that we can see the storyboards for with temporary dialog added.
Theatrical Trailers
Final Thoughts:
The film is 20 years old, and boy, does that make me feel old, because I remember being a projectionist and playing this during my time working at a movie theater. I still find the film funny and entertaining, but I feel some these days might just find it “too offensive”. If you’re a fan of South Park and you haven’t seen the film, I highly recommend checking it out. This disc release for the film is loaded with extras that give a fun and insightful look at the process of making this film, and it is interesting to see how they pulled it off, So is Team America: World Police worth checking out? “F- Yeah”.
Parts of this review were written by Gino Sassani
