REVIEW DATE: 7:16:9:9
WARNING!: This review contains real human language.
It is an age of turmoil. Of middle class white trash blasting the crap out of each other. An age of the wooden wives of wooden Vice Presidents start fascist campaigns to wipe out free speech in America's music. It is an age of hypocrisy, where children can apparently see people blow to bloody, twitching chunks, but GOD FORBID they see any kind of T&A! Or, even worse, hear the word "Fuck".
Now, maybe I'm in the minority, but doesn't that seam a little . . . I don't know . . . fucked up? Yes, that seams like the best word.
Into this knee jerk, white bread, bible thumping, we-can't-offend-anyone-or-they-won't-buy-our-stuff world was born Trey Parker and Matt Stone. This gruesome twosome would grow up one day to create a TV show about 4 foul-mouthed little bastards, Kyle, Kenny, Stan and Cartman, called South Park. And, oh, what a show it would become. In just two years Park has gone from one 10 minuet little sketch to the most intelligent movie of 1999.
Yes, you read that right. No, I am not smoking crack. Yes, I'm being serious. No, really, I am. Stop laughing! It's true. What you must do is look past the fart jokes that fly like bullets, past low-blow sexual jokes, even (GOD FORBID) past the radioactive profanity to see what this movie really has to say?
Well, what is that? you ask. Keep your panties on, little one; we've got a plot synapsis to get out of the way first. As we begin, the boys are movie bound their hopes high. The movie is Asses of Fire and is the first movie from the boy's favorite fart joke spewing duo, Terrance and Phillip. The movie is so vilely profane that soon only the boys remain in the theater.
As Cartman points out latter: "That movie has warped my fragile little mind!"
Said mind warping leads the children to tell their teacher, Mr. Garrison, to go fuck himself. This does not go well with the children's mothers, particularly Kyle's mom, Sheila. Since (as we all know) Kyle's mom is a stupid bitch she forms the organization Mothers Against Canada (MAC) which eventually pressures the US government into declaring war on Canada (to protect the children, of course), and kidnaps Terrance and Phillip (to protect children from them) with plans to execute them as war criminals. All in the name of protecting their children.
Meanwhile, Kenny has died (in imitation of the movie he self immolates while trying to light a fart on fire) and is denied access to Heaven. Falling to Hell, he discovers Satan and his lover (the late) Saddam Hussein will be released upon the Earth if the blood of T&P touches American soil. Why? Does it matter? As a ghost, Kenny warns his friends, who go off to save their icons. Why? 'Cuse that's what Brian Boitano would do, duh!
So, what does it all mean? Isn't it obvious? Well, Roger Ebert doesn't get it, so I guess not. Look at it this way: Out of control censorship (in the name of protecting children) not only causes a war, but has the potential to cause the Apocalypse as well. T&P's death is the 7th sign, after all. How much more blatant can you get?! Maybe Ebert is just getting thick skulled in his old age.
Personally, I'm surprised anyone in modern Hollywood has the balls to tell the moral majority, "Fuck you", in such a loud voice. Congrats are in order to Parker, Stone and Pam Brady for the deliciously satirical script they've written, the voices they give the characters, and for the show they've created.
Oh, stop worrying! Just because there's a serious message hidden inside doesn't mean this movie is any less South Park. There are enough fart jokes, foul-mouthed little brats, and other gross stuff (a giant clit, Saddam's sexual aids, horrible bloody war scenes, the death of the Baldwin brothers) too keep you busting your gut. Consider the message the cream filling to this big, chocolate covered, honey glazed, rancidity offensive doughnut called South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
Plus, Kenny speaks with the help of Bevis and Butt-head creator Mike Judge. Nice little passing of the torch thing there.
P. S. This movie is not for the overly sensitive, God-fearing Christians, children under 5, or easily offended panty waits who don't know how to take a joke about themselves or their own hyphenated-American group. There, now I'm done.
RATING: (OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)
THANK GOD WE LIVE IN THE QUIET, LITTLE, REDNECK, PODUNK, WHITE TRASH, KICK ASS, USA.
