SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT (Paramount) Voices: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes. Screenplay: Trey Parker & Matt Stone and Pam Brady. Producers: Trey Parker & Matt Stone. Director: Trey Parker. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes, adult humor, cartoon violence, sexual situations) Running Time: 81 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT is crude and profane. It's more-than-occasionally offensive. It's naughty just to see how much naughtiness you can get away with. It's repetitious in its dependence on obscenity from the mouths of babes. In short, it's everything critics of the Comedy Central series "South Park" have accused it of being for three years, with the added benefit of including several hundred choice R-rated profanities. This is about as vile and inexcusable as comedy film-making gets, a distillation of everything people fear popular culture is doing to our sensibilities, and I laughed so hard I thought I'd harm an internal organ.
There's no question that "South Park" is for a very specific taste, or lack thereof. Even those who had been embracing the series now seem to have tired of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's crass market approach to grabbing laughs, as evidenced by the show's plummeting ratings. BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT's missed jokes and sniggering immaturity probably wouldn't surprise even the staunchest "South Park" fan; its sporadic brilliance may surprise everyone. The premise is a reflexive commentary on "harmful" film-making, with the show's four young pals -- Eric Cartman (Parker), Stan Marsh (Parker), Kyle Broflovski (Stone) and Kenny McCormick (Stone) -- learning some interesting words from an R-rated feature film starring scatalogical cartoon stars Terrance & Phillip. The children's profane outbursts cause a parental panic in which Terrance & Phillip's home nation of Canada is held accountable for many societal ills. War with our neighbor to the north ensues, as well does a preparation for the Apocalypse by Satan and his new lover Saddam Hussein.
The broad pot-shots at censorship and moralistic hysteria aren't surprising coming from Parker and Stone, who have been heralded as harbingers of the Apocalypse themselves. They get in a few swipes at the MPAA (which branded Parker's ORGAZMO with an NC-17), taking particular aim at the greater concern with vulgarity than with violence. Also in their crosshairs are nationalistic fervor, happy-talk psychology, Internet pornography and media sensationalism, all compared to the relatively mundane sin of potty-mouthing. The target may be easy and some of the jokes obvious, but Parker and Stone keep the chuckles coming at the expense of those who would condemn them.
As it turns out, the film is far less effective as social satire than it is at pop culture parody. You see, BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT is a musical, with many of the numbers by Parker and composer Marc Shaiman patterned after the recent Disney formula. There's a scene-setting introductory number ("Mountain Town"), a song for the heroes' dilemma ("What Would Brian Boitano Do?"), a song for the villains ("Blame Canada"), and a show-stopping production number ("It's Easy, Mmmkay"). Parker and Stone then switch gears to target LES MISERABLES, as the children's "La Resistance" movement opposing their parents' proposed execution of Terrance & Phillip generates numbers keyed to "One Day More" and "A Little Fall of Rain." The fifteen songs provide the film's most riotous moments, including Terrance & Phillip's explosively obscene ode to molestation and Satan's tender ballad about his quest for happiness. You may never feel guiltier about laughing harder.
A style like Parker and Stone's, similar to scattershot predecessors like Mel Brooks and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team, is bound to produce its share of duds like the go-nowhere jabs at a perpetually horny Saddam Hussein. Many viewers will just be turned off by the use of homosexuality or military racism as punch lines, or even the whole idea of easily-influenced kids in today's charged post-Columbine High climate. SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT isn't going to make anyone prouder to be an American, or any less convinced that movies are all about shock value. It's not even going to earn points for preaching to the choir about letting parents do the job of parenting. It may do nothing more than leave you choking back the laughs for fear of acknowledging the power of your inner 12-year-old.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 animated debates: 7.
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