Insert your own lame South Park catchphrase here
One fact must be stated up front so the rest of this review can be viewed in it's proper perspective: I hate South Park. Since that's a broad statement, perhaps I should elaborate. I found the humor on South Park to be scatter-shot at best, but it was the fans who recited various catch phrases and endlessly repeated jokes that weren't even particularly funny in context as if they were reciting scripture that drove me away from the show. I figured the show would eventually run out of the energetic hype that had kept it going and would implode from it's own mediocrity. The trouble was, it was taking far too long for my tastes.
When the South Park movie came out I ignored it. Why should I pay for the honor of seeing the movie of a television show I don't like? I wasn't sure what to make of the critical approval the movie received, but I wasn't going to view the film just to satisfy my curiosity. The only reason I ended up seeing the film was because someone else rented the video [I'll watch the silliest things if someone is footing the bill.] Surprisingly, I not only watched the film but enjoyed it. But why?
Perhaps I was tired. I was rather sleepy when I watched the movie, so it's entirely possible that my personal tastes were so lowered that I considered cursing cartoons to be entertaining. Perhaps I was in the mood for a good musical. The only cinematic musicals that have come out in recent memory have been Disney cartoons, and those have often been pretty weak affairs that seem designed more for the cross-over potential with the Adult-Contemporary Top 40 market rather than improving the film. The South Park show-tunes, however, were extremely catchy songs that had more than an echo of the score from Oklahoma and other classic productions.
But why was the movie funny when the show itself leaves me cold? A majority of the critical raves felt that it was a sharp social critique of the perennial mentality of banning anything under the sun that crops up in America. That explanation, however, seemed a bit off. In the few interviews I had seen with Trey Parker and Matt Stone -the creators of South Park- they never struck me as being canny enough to think up a satire as pointed as that. In fact, they stated that they were using the movie as a form of petty revenge against whatever groups they thought had wronged them. It shows in that the jokes weren't really aimed at a specific target but rather were bleated out randomly, hitting anything that vaguely looked like a symbol of authority. Instead of creating a satire, all they had was animated anarchy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not what other thought it was.
Just because everyone who was praising South Park seemed to be wildly off in their view of the movie doesn't necessarily mean they were wrong. A movie success depends as much on the audience's reaction as what the film-makers present. From the self-centered creators to the overly ambitious critics to the core audience who are just tuning in for scatalogical jokes, all of them found something to enjoy in the movie. So whether the audience were gleaning parody where none existed or were simply going to hear dirty jokes, as long as they were entertained the movie served it's purpose.
But understanding why the movie worked for others is just a way of hedging around the explanation for why I enjoyed the film. Truth be told, I don't know why I liked the stupid thing. Maybe there was a gas leak in the apartment complex I was in when I was viewing it. Maybe I had drank more that evening than I thought. Maybe I'm just becoming increasingly stupid as time goes on.
So do I recommend the film? Well, it certainly didn't make me a fan of the show. All it did was remind me of the squandered possibilities that the weekly show is unable to capitalize on. So, finally, I ended up with a movie based on a show I can't stand, created by people I don't much care for, overly reviewed by everyone, yet, for some reason, I enjoyed. Somehow South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut added up to be more than the sum of it's parts. See it for that reason if for no other.
For some reason I feel the need to wash my hands after typing that out. If you want to get ahold of me while I'm out of the room taking care of that bit of cleasning, drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com. If you're done pondering the social standing of cardboard characters, head on back to the Second Movie or the Main page.
Get your own Free Home Page