South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
If there's one thing I really hate, it's being wrong. In my recent Austin Powers review, I made the assertion that anyone who gets a kick out of crude scatological humor is either 13 or stupid. As a 25-year-old, then, I must be dumb as a stump, because the profanity and fart jokes of South Park had me laughing out loud on many occasions. Part of this is the yawning chasm between the content and the delivery - you simply won't believe what comes out of the mouths of these innocent-looking cartoons. Still, this stuff would still get old very quickly were it not for the incisive political and social satirical stabs that carry the film.
I'm a minor fan of South Park - while I don't go out of my way to catch the show, I've seen a few episodes and they struck me as alternately sophomoric and brilliant. Like The Simpsons, it's much easier to get away with edgy or satirical content when it comes in such an innocuous package. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut has some of the sharpest jabs at America's moralistic fervor I've seen in the theatre in a while, defusing potential criticism of the film by attacking the MPAA directly in the movie.
The arc of the plot is easily summed up - Kyle, Cartman, and the rest of the South Park kids bribe a homeless man to get them into a Canadian film called "Asses of Fire" and are shocked to hear the profanity in the movie. They return to school and gleefully teach their classmates their new vocab, and the town goes into an uproar, blaming the film and ultimately, Canadians for corrupting the youth. A committee headed up by Kyle's mom lobbies for war with our neighbors to the North, and the execution of the stars of the offending film. That the army sends an all-black battalion on the frontline as "Operation Human Shield" is just one example of the film's subversive wit.
Best of all, and I never thought I'd say this, the film is a musical. Songs like "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" and "Uncle Fucker" are scathingly hilarious, an exquisite parody of Disney and Andrew Lloyd Webber-style pabulum delivered at breakneck speed. The songs aren't just funny, they're wildly catchy, backed by a full orchestra that only adds to the comedy. South Park's lo-fi cut-and-paste animation also translates surprisingly well to the big-screen - I found the primary colors and jerky movements more visually absorbing than most computer animation, and certainly more inherently comical.
It's not front-to-back genius, by any means. The first half of the film is consistently hilarious and assured, but begins to lag a bit in the final twenty minutes. The scenes with Satan and Saddam Hussein in Hell veer from satire to just dumb and homophobic, but then, just about everyone will find something in here to offend them, from Bill Gates to the Christian right to small-town Americans. I urge anyone who actually thinks that the entertainment industry had anything to do with the Littleton shootings to stay far away, although that's exactly the mindset South Park targets.
Though I'm generally wary of films drawn from TV as the very concept shows a dearth of creativity, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have successfully made the transition through a healthy disregard for political correctness and a strong fidelity to the spirit of the show. Though somewhat inconsistent, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is easily the funniest movie I've seen this year. See if you don't leave the theatre humming obscenities and remembering the sweet naughty pleasure, the instant response from adults you could get when you first learned to curse properly.
- Jared O'Connor
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All Content © 1997, 1998, 1999 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker