782. Team America: World Police (2004)

Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Elle Russ

Director: Trey Parker

Running Time: 97 mins

Team America: World Police is an American film about a band of agents who must swoop in to prevent the evil Kim Jong-Il and the even more evil Film Actors’ Guild from destroying the Americans’ beloved world peace and, most importantly, freedom.

It’s nice to see the Americans really taking the mick out of themselves for this international image that they have of being totally over the top patriots, a bit of a break from the generic American comedy. That said, this film is made by the guys who did South Park, and there really are fewer things on the planet that I find more annoying than that, so whilst I may have laughed quite a bit in this film, it wasn’t very fun to watch.

Let me explain that a bit better. Basically, this film has a lot of funny jokes in it. Unlike the South Park film, it’s not only ridiculously rude, but some of the jokes are a little more satirical, and, dare I say, intelligent, and of course, fantastically offensive. Despite that, the fact that the dialogue is so sweary, there are still so many toilet jokes all the way through, and it’s just such a preposterously idiotic story, is more annoying than anything else, and it’s that that prevented this from becoming a hugely entertaining film for me.

To be honest, the level of the comedy is all there really is to talk about in this film, because it’s such a farce that nothing actually makes any sense. I’d also say that the voice performances are entertaining, it’s a well-written screenplay, and the puppets idea is actually another really funny part of the film, making it look so much like Thunderbirds, but just made by 13 year old Americans.

Overall, despite being funnier than I expected, this gets a 6.8, because it was just so annoying and South Park-ish that I just wasn’t entertained enough by it.