tek's rating:

Team America: World Police (R/unrated)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Max; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 2004, but I didn't see it until 2018. I never really thought I'd have any interest in seeing it until I was reading Entertainment Weekly's list of the 25 most patriotic movies of all time, in July 2017. Because it was on that list, I decided that the next year I should watch it on the Fourth of July, and that's what I did. Anyway, the movie was made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of South Park fame. It's definitely one of the most offensive movies I've ever seen... like, seriously, they seemed to me to be trying to offend pretty much everyone in the world, one way or another. And the humor mostly seems pretty lowbrow, though there were some bits I found genuinely funny. I think. Oh... also I should mention that all the characters are marionettes.

So, there's this anti-terrorism group called Team America, which travels around the world fighting terrorists, of course. But they end up causing a hell of a lot of destruction themselves, while trying to prevent terrorists from destroying things. The movie starts during a mission in Paris, in which one member of the team, Carson, is killed right after proposing to another member of the team, Lisa. So of course she's heartbroken, now. Later, the team's leader, Spottswoode, recruits a Broadway actor named Gary to join the team. He wants Gary to use his acting skills to infiltrate a terrorist cell and get information about a planned attack. Gary doesn't want to do this at first, but soon changes his mind. And eventually, he and Lisa develop feelings for each other. But unbeknownst to Gary, another member of the team, Sarah, also has feelings for him. And unbeknownst to Sarah, yet another member of the team, Joe, has feelings for her. And the final member of the team, Chris, doesn't like Gary, because he has a strong distrust of all actors, for a reason that will be revealed later. Um... the mission to stop the latest terrorist threat takes some twists and turns that I don't want to spoil. So I'll just say that the person behind it all is Kim Jong-il. (Kids today might not remember him, but he was Kim Jong-un's father, and leader of North Korea until he died in 2011. Man, I am late watching this movie.)

Other than that, I don't know what to say. There are probably people who would like this movie a lot more than I did and people who would hate it. But I thought it was not as bad as I expected it to be. I can't really imagine ever wanting to watch it again, though. Oh, and I also wanted to say, you definitely shouldn't watch it if you have emetophobia (because of one scene, which I looked away from).


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