I’m not quite sure how to describe this marionette extravaganza, put together by the guys who gave you South Park. Are these guys ultra-conservatives, or crazed liberals, or do they just want to lampoon everybody?

Team America, a small group of near-super heroes with a set of winged, finned and wheeled super-vehicles (shades of Sylvia and Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds!) that fly out of the heads of the presidents on Mt. Rushmore, are engaged in the war on terrorism. Terrorists are bearded, swarthy Middle Easterners, enraged at America for its freedom, its democracy, and mainly for its penchant to bomb their herds of goats. All of them are armed with high-powered machine guns and metallic suitcases with blinking lights on them which must be Weapons of Mass Destruction. None of these weapons ever goes off, and in any case are unnecessary because, whether we are in Paris or Cairo, Team America, in defeating the evil terrorists, can do more damage to its surroundings than any WMD ever created could do.

The WMDs are being provided by the evil Kim Jong Il of North Korea, a man or puppet whose voice may strike you as uncannily similar to that of Eric Cartwright of South Park. Kim has a plot to destroy civilization by setting off WMDs in major cities all over the world while the leaders of the world’s peoples are convoked at a spurious peace conference in Korea, having been attracted there by the liberal members of the ultra-liberal Film Actors Guild, and particularly by chief dupe Alec Baldwin, head of the F.A.G. Kim’s plot can be carried out because — thanks to suicide bomber Michael Moore — he has wiped out Team America’s headquarters and captured all of Team America. All, that is, except for recently recruited and recently resigned actor Gary Johnston, who, after proving his loyalty and trustworthiness to team sponsor Spottswoode, is assigned to rescue the team, wipe out F.A.G., and take out Kim.

There are those who do not like this film — starting with Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Janeane Garofolo, Tim Robbins, Samuel L. Jackson, Susan Sarandon, and a host of other liberal actors and actresses who have specific roles in the movie (in whose production, according to the credits, they did not cooperate). One may suppose that Kim Jong Il, too, is less than enthused — that is assuming that he ever sees it (he does, however, have the best song in this occasionally musical film: “Ronery, I’m So Ronery”). Excluding these obviously prejudiced individuals, the rest of us can find much to enjoy in it, even when we criticize not only the not-so-occasionally foul language and the near-explicit (and sometimes absolutely explicit — see Gary and Lisa’s bedroom encounter) sex but also the … how shall I put this? … wooden acting. And when Jet Li, discussing Hero, talked about the “wire work” that the battling characters in that film did, he could also have been talking about Team America, though here we may call it “string work”.

I don’t think I’d go to the movies to see this one again; but I think I’d kind of like to have the DVD.

s/Eric Cartwright/Eric Cartman