South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have never been afraid to take jabs at world leaders and celebrities regardless of whether or not it might be (to some people, at least) in poor taste to do so. South Park – Bigger, Longer And Uncut is a perfect example of how the two almost seem to relish in skewering those in the public light, whether it be by making fun of popular figure skaters or portraying Saddam Hussein as a homosexual having a torrid and carnal relationship with the devil himself. Parker and Stone's 2004 film, Team America – World Police takes their twisted talent for satire to a whole new level using not live actors or cartoons but by using puppets.

Based around the all too real political climate of a post 9/11 world, the film begins when Osama Bin Laden and a gang of Al Queda thugs attempt to plant weapons of mass destruction in France. Just as things are about to get ugly, Team America shows up to save the day, managing to blow up the Eiffel Tower and a few other French national monuments along the way – all in the name of freedom, liberty and justice. Sadly, Team America doesn't make it out unscathed and they lose a member when a terrorist shoots him in the chest. He bleeds to death in his fiance's arms, and the team is shattered.

Cut to New York City, where a young actor named Gary finishes up his performance for the night as the male lead in the hit Broadway smash, Lease! When the show is over, he's approached by a Mr. Spottsworth who convinces Gary to get into his stretch Lamborgini limo despite Gary's fears of forced oral copulation. Spottsworth takes Gary to Team America's 'Team Base,' right in the heart of Mr. Rushmore where he meets the surviving members of the group – a good natured all American guy named Chris, a tough and rough hard ass named Joe, an empathetic woman named Lisa, and the sultry Sarah, the former fiance of the deceased team member who Gary soon finds out he was brought in to replace. It seems that the terrorists are all going to be meeting in Cairo (that's in Egypt!) and Team America needs Gary to infiltrate their meeting and get the information they need to stop them before it's 9/11 times one thousand. Gary's the only man who can do it, because he's a great actor.

Gary obliges, and after some haphazard laser surgery, is transformed into a middle eastern terrorist and, clad in a turban and a leather jacket, he makes his way into the very familiar cantina where the meeting takes place. At first it looks like Gary is done for and that the terrorists see right through him but he's able to put his acting skills to good use and convince them that not only is he one of them, but that he has impressively large balls as well. It seems that in this film, terrorists love big balls. Team America is able to stop the terrorists and save the day after destroying the Sphinx and a Pyramid or two, all in the name of freedom, liberty, and justice. Gary even celebrates by having a kinky and very aerobic romp in the bedroom with Lisa after promising her that he'll never die.

When it turns out that Team America had bad intelligence on where the real weapons of mass destruction were, Gary quits, feeling responsible for a lot of unnecessary death and destruction. He soon spirals into his own misery and turns towards the bottle for salvation. As luck would have it, however, Korean madman Kim Jong Il had set into motion a master plan that will allow him to turn the entire planet into one, big third world nation. How will he do this? He'll use the left wing member of the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G. for short) to put on a great big show to entertain and distract the world leaders. Then, when Alec Baldwin hits the stage and has them all under his amazing spell, Kim Jong Il's network of terrorists will unleash their fury upon an unsuspecting populace.

Using puppet recreations of all manner of real public figures such as the aforementioned Kim Jong Il (who even treats us to a musical number wherein he explains that the real reason he's so evil is simply because he's lonely… so lonely), Hans Blix and a few other United Nations superstars, the film also lampoons many of Hollywood's politically active notables. Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, George Clooney, Helen Hunt, Janeane Garofalo, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Danny Glover, Ethan Hawke and an amazingly accurate Matt Damon all have some pretty hilarious roles as members of F.A.G. and the members of Team America deal with them as they need to once they start to get in the way of liberty, freedom and justice.

The film not only parodies actors and politicians though - it also takes a few jabs at notable Hollywood films such as Pearl Harbor, The Matrix, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Star Wars, Men In Black, Kill Bill,

Top Gun and Rocky (cause even Rocky had a montage!). Of course, the influence of The Thunderbirds is obvious in the very look of the entire movie, but Team America also plays with some of the teamwork and characters used in that television series as well.

Parker and Stone wrap all of this up in a crass, violent, and sexually explicit package with plenty of blood, carnality, and swearing. Puppets copulate in ways that would make Dr. Ruth blush. Heads explode during violent firefights, giant 'jaguars' (played by real life kitty cats) maul well intentioned celebrities and feast on their innards, and profanity laces pretty much every song on the soundtrack. It's childish, immature, and crude and you know what? It's damn funny, too.

Even if the humor isn't to your liking, and let's face it some people out there just don't like lowbrow comedy, you've got to admire the look of the film. There's so much detail put into the characters and the sets that after a few minutes you get used to seeing the strings on the characters and by the time the fifteen minute mark hits, their awkward motions and choreography starts to become natural. Everyone in the film moves that way, and in fact everything in the movie moves that way too, right down to the vehicles and background characters. The fact that the filmmakers were able to get such accurate likenesses of real people using puppets is also quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

If you look past the surface of the film though, and are able to see through the poop jokes and genitalia references, Team America is actually a damn clever satire. At times, almost prophetic and often chillingly accurate for a film made with marionettes, Parker and Stone are able to work through the hypocrisy of both the left wing and right wing agendas currently battling it out in the American political arena. At a time when the country stands very divided on foreign policy and the war on terrorism, Team America is a refreshingly smart film that offers more than toilet talk and explosions (though it does deliver on that end as well). While a lot of people took the filmmakers to task for slanting the film with a right wing spin, when you really think about the actions of the characters, nothing could be further from the truth. The film is a parody and a satire and it doesn't really slant one way or the other. Both sides are fair game and Parker and Stone go after Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike with both guns blazing.

Worth noting is that this unrated version of the film does contain some extended sequences during the love scene that were cut to avoid an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. It doesn't add up to much more than a few seconds of footage, but it is memorable and as soon as it hits the screen, you'll know what was reinserted.

Video:

Team America benefits greatly from an excellent 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on this DVD. The widescreen cinematography looks wonderfully bright and colorful and the image does justice to the insane amount of detail that the set designers have crammed into every iota of the background in this film.

While there is some very mild softness noticeable in a couple of scenes, and every once in a while the reds look a little bit too harsh, for the most part this movie looks very, very good. The black levels remain strong and stable throughout, and I didn't notice any problems with mpeg compression artifacts at all during playback. Edge enhancement is almost undetectable and the image is almost entirely free of shimmering. There are no problems with print damage or grain and aside from some the aforementioned teeny-weenie issues, there's not much to complain about here. Paramount has handled the video quality on this release very nicely.