Team America is obviously too profane and bawdy—that is, too "Hollywood"—for Bush's fundamentalist base or a neocon prig like Michael Medved (except perhaps late at night when he's all alone). But, fuck yeah, it's the perfect date flick for a drunken frat boy trying to impress right-wing skank Ann Coulter.
-- J. Hoberman
Team America: World Police can be enjoyed on various levels: as a wicked take-off on action movies, as a twisted Trey Parker/Matt Stone film (the leader of North Korea reminds one of Cartman), and as a nifty experiment on the use of marionettes (puppet show or not, you actually care about these characters, but have fun doing so).
I personally think it could have been funnier (vomiting, making fun at Korean dialect, and watching Hollywood liberals die is only so amusing*). It still is pretty damn funny, especially the way the actor turned action hero proves his loyalty. This bit along with a the movie's theme and sex scene also shows the joys of well done vulgarity. And, the sets and effects probably should be nominated for an Academy Award -- a helluva lot of work went into making a movie using such a simplistic style of animation.
The movie also has a philosophy -- oh, movies of this sort don't want to admit to this, since being serious is so freakening lame, man. It does though. Other than some slow spots, the fact the movie goes for cheap shots against Hollywood liberals is annoying because of just that -- the dick/pussy/asshole philosophy of world policy is a nifty metaphor. So, why portray pussies as acting like dicks? Isn't the fact they are peace loving freaks who wouldn't use violence to save their own lives the whole issue?
It has been noted that South Park is a libertarian minded show, so liberals are clearly fair game. Still, hearing said liberals talk about actors reading the news and spouting it as if it was their own opinions is rather lame. This is surely not a trait limited to liberals, and many of them given the nature of the press these days actually are rather selective in parroting the news. The movie clearly is on the side of the dicks, but its backers surely aren't just concerned with pussies. Or are they? Hell, the nervous might suggest this was a Bush campaign advertisment. See here for more concerns of this nature.
The reply might be not to take things so seriously, but equal opportunity wicked satire is the best kind. The movie actually comments that sometimes pussies are needed to mitigate the excesses of dicks. Such probably would be the case here though liberal actors do blow up real good.
So, good movie, but not quite the super fantastic one that some suggest.
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* Oh, how about the idea that the villians are members of the "Film Actor's Guild" (F.A.G.)? This gets lame after a while.