From the creators of Southpark comes this twisted action movie starring an all puppet, sorry marionette, cast. I can’t even compare this to the only other marionette movie I’ve seen Strings because it is like comparing oranges and apples. Where Strings was appealing in the touching, but dark, storyline, Team America: World Police is just plain crazy and you either like the rude crude humour or you don’t.

The story tells of a Team America, an international police force, who learn that a dictator plans to use WMD (weapons of mass destruction) to firstly destroy and then take over the world. [Sound familiar?] Gary Johnston, a rising Broadway star, is recruited to go undercover as a terrorist and use his “acting” to uncover the secret plans. Apparently this is a plot lifted from John Le Carré novel “The Little Drummer Girl.” Who would have known.

From the opening scene, where Paris is destroyed, to love scenes with marionette-on-marionette action to a puke scene that lasts many more minutes than necessary, you know you are in for some classic work from Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Unfortunately, though it is side-stitchingly hilarious in parts, the movie fails to carry the momentum to the end where it basically becomes a hate fest and, as one critic put it: “Parker and Stone turn into a couple of obnoxious kids running around in circles giving the finger to every person and institution they see.” (Jeffrey Westhoff.)