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What do you get when you cross a handful of puppets with an arsenal of jets, jeeps, and big machine guns? If you said “Team America” you guessed right. It seems that a group of Muslim terrorists have gotten their hands on a weapon of mass destruction and have convened in Paris, France to lay out their evil scheme. But don’t worry, Team America is on the job as they come swooping down in high tech jets - guns blazing. So do these heroes receive a medal for their hard work? Hells no!!! Instead, they bring upon themselves the wrath of the Film Actors Guild, also referred to as FAG for comedic purposes, just because they accidentally blew up the Eiffel Tower along with half of Paris while they were fighting the terrorists. Come on, it’s only France for crying out loud. However, the battle between the terrorists and Team America is not over. It appears that the terrorists have a new scheme planned and only Gary Johnston, a Broadway musical performer, can infiltrate their ranks in order to stop them.

I’ve seen many political satires on the big screen before, however Team America: World Police is quite different from a typical parody film because it employees a cast of puppets instead of actors. Yes, only the minds of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the infamous creators of South Park, could have come up with such a concept. Besides the five members of Team America there is a whole cast of left-leaning movie stars including Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, as well as many others. Although the puppets were not identical replicas of the famous actors and actresses, it was fairly easy to identify who was who by their unique hair style and the outfit that they wore. I was impressed with the sheer number of different characters who were brought into the movie, which would not be possible unless puppets were used. My only gripe is with the character of Kim Jong Il, who, in spite of his accent sounded an awful lot like Eric Cartman from South Park.

What can you do with a bunch of wooden dummies? Apparently a whole lot! Not only do they walk and talk, but they also drive jeeps, fly airplanes, and have simulated sex! Yes, you’ve heard me right, I said have sex! Apparently since puppets don’t have certain body parts it’s ok to show them engaging in gratuitous sex for comedic effect. This of course is something more than you might expect from a typical rated R movie. Moving on to a less controversial subject, the sets design was very impressive with colorful and fairly accurate renditions of New York, Pairs, and Cairo. Last but not least, what would an action movie parody be without all the explosions? What’s the point of having all of those nice sets if you can’t blow the sh*t out of them? That’s right, we’re Americans, f*ck yeah.

Is it a coincidence that this movie comes out two weeks before the Presidential election? I don’t think so. The movie tries to appear to be bipartisan because it makes fun of each side. Team America is portrayed as an overzealous, unconcerned, and immoral bunch, who doesn't think anything about demolishing famous landmarks and killing harmless people in other countries. Their job is to fight the terrorist and they don’t care how they do it or who’ll get hurt in the process as long as the terrorists are stopped. On the other side we have the liberal actors led by Alec Baldwin who are against using force. The actors act in a similar way, and through the course of the movie get so carried away in their plan to stop Team America that they ultimately become the people they hate. So far, so good, but unfortunately the political parodies stop there. Have the creators of one of the most controversial TV shows turned conservative? To the dismay of many South Park fans I think they have. Where are the puppets for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and John Kerry? In my opinion, making fun of actors who speak out against the war on an individual basis while hiding the identities of the administration behind a faceless group called Team America is a cop-out. While the movie itself is wildly entertaining with gut busting parodies, humorous songs, and enough toilet humor to fill the entire theater, the overall message outlined in the movie is weak. If only Trey Parker and Matt Stone had the balls to put George W. Bush in the movie, it would have been a million times funnier and more meaningful; but instead they themselves turned out to be the pussies who are afraid of getting f*cked, instead of the actors who they so blatantly make fun of.