About 75 percent of the laughs in "Team America: World Police" would have remained intact even if the film were shot with
live actors, because it's a funny script. The other 25 percent are there because the film was shot with marionettes, and anything a marionette does is funny. Even walking, even fighting, and especially having sex or vomiting. When a marionette has sex or vomits, you are watching comedy gold, my friends. "Team America" was written and directed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, whom you know as the boys behind "South Park." (They had a third co-writer, Pam Brady, also a regular "South Park" contributor.) The film has exactly the same mix of trenchant socio-political satire, juvenile sex and bodily function jokes, and politically incorrect audacity as the TV show, and that's probably all you need to know. If you find "South Park" funny, you'll howl at "Team America." Otherwise, heaven help you if you try to watch this movie. Team America is a heroic band of do-gooders, on the order of Sky Captain or the Thunderbirds. (The old "Thunderbirds" TV show, which also used marionettes, was no doubt the inspiration for Parker and Stone's foray into the medium.) When there's trouble -- lately in the form of international terrorism -- Team America arrives on the scene to apprehend or kill the evil-doers, and usually to make a huge mess in the process. Often the mess is worse than the initial threat, which is why much of the world hates Team America, as do many Hollywood actors, all members of the Film Actors Guild (or F.A.G.).
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