For all its hype, Team America: World Police turned out to be far less than I expected.

First, Team America is not nearly as politically offensive as I thought it would be. Team America is actually rather light on the political satire, and where it does have something to say, the left actually gets the harder end of the jokes. Of course, there’s some humor directed at the U.S. – the film’s subtitle for example. When Team America rush to France in the call of duty, they end up destroying everything in their way – including the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower – in order to take out a few terrorists. But while Team America is depicted as ruthless, thoughtless and headstrong, they’re also clearly the good guys.

The bad guys consist of a group of terrorists, led by Kim Jong Il and who are depicted as a genuine threat to international security, and F.A.G. (Film Actors Guild), a group of actors led by Alec Baldwin and including the likes of Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Janeane Garofalo, and are depicted as a genuine threat to international security. The actors are slaughtered by their portrayal as ignorant anti-warists who want to indoctrinate the world and then are literally slaughtered by Team America. The film ends with a plea that both sides of the isle just settle down.

Team America is also not as traditionally offensive as I thought it would be. At least, it’s not as bad as South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. That’s not to say it’s not naughty though. There’s a good dosage of language – the film’s oft sung theme song goes, “Team America, F*** Yeah!” The little puppets get blown to pieces, often revealing blood and little marionette guts, and then there’s the infamous marionette sex scene, which is neither as offensive nor as funny as the hype – just immature. It’s like something that foul minded teenage boys would do when they got a hold of their little sister’s Barbie dolls.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Team America just isn’t as funny as the hype has set it up to be. That’s not to say there weren’t a few scenes that had my stomach hurting from laughter, but the dry lags between such scenes were too long and too often. I understand you have to like South Park humor to appreciate Team America, but I often think South Park is pretty funny, and Team America wasn’t much funnier than any given episode.

Strangely enough, the most impressive parts of Team America I’ve actually heard less about. Team America is constantly playing with scenes from other movies – like Shrek 2 does – and loves to mock Bruckheimer movies. The songs are possibly the best thing Team America has to offer. Team member Gary sings “Everyone has AIDS” on Broadway and later sings “I miss you almost as much as Michael Bay missed the mark in Pearl Harbor.” Kim Jong Il sings a hilariously unexpected song about how lonely he is as an evil terrorist with a voice that’s just a notch away from Cartman. The marionettes are also quite impressively created and handled, they even manage to create quite appropriate facial expressions.

Though it’s funny and offensive only in spurts, Parker and Stone always make it clear that they’re not taking themselves seriously – and a film couldn’t possibly take itself less seriously than Team America: World Police.

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