'Team America' invades Friday

The Associated Press

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the mad geniuses behind "South Park," spare no one from skewering in their all-puppet extravaganza about a globe-trotting team of overly energetic peacekeepers.

The result is a film that works on every imaginable level: as a comedy, as sharp political commentary, as a send-up of bombastic action flicks, even as a musical. As in Parker and Stone's 1999 film "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut," some of the most inspired moments come in song, including Team America's rockin' theme, "America, (Expletive) Yeah!" which blares as they blast off in jets from their James Bond-style headquarters hidden inside Mount Rushmore.

But the characters also move with an awkward jerkiness that provides big laughs, especially during a graphic sex scene, which takes place between pretty-boy Gary, an actor formerly starring on Broadway in "Lease: The Musical," and Lisa, who specializes in terrorist psychology and has the blond locks and big facial features that call to mind Cybill Shepherd, if Cybill Shepherd were made of wood.

At the film's start, Gary is recruited by Spottswoode, the group's silver-haired mentor, to use his acting skills and go undercover as a terrorist to find out when and where the next big attack is planned. Spottswoode believes Gary is "the perfect weapon" since he's an actor who double majored in theater and world languages at the University of Iowa.

Gary's crude terrorist transformation consists of some cotton balls dyed black and stuck to his chiseled facial features, a little shoe polish and a bath towel wrapped his head. (Parker and Stone have never exactly been known for being politically correct, so why should they start now?)

Their depiction of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il won't endear them to the Asian community, either -- he whines and mopes about his palace in a powder-blue leisure suit, singing about how lonely he is, but in his heavy accent the word comes out as "rone-ry."

The puppetized actors in the movie won't be happy with their portrayal, either. Alec Baldwin, head of the Film Actors Guild (which is frequently abbreviated -- well, you can figure it out for yourself), is as madly power-hungry as the terrorists themselves.

It all may sound adolescent and goofy, and a lot of the time it is. But "Team America" also may be the best film of the year. It's easily the funniest.