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OK, let's get all the disclaimers out of the way first. Despite its colorful (if crude) animation,
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is in no way meant for kids. It is chock full of profanity that might even make Quentin Tarantino blanch and has blasphemous references to God, Satan, Saddam Hussein (who's sleeping with Satan, literally), and Canada. It's rife with scatological humor, suggestive sexual situations, political incorrectness, and gleeful, rampant vulgarity. And it's probably one of the most brilliant satires ever made. The plot: flatulent Canadian gross
meisters Terrance and Philip hit the big screen, and the South Park quartet of third graders--Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman--begin repeating their profane one-liners ad infinitum. The parents of South Park, led by Kyle's overbearing mom, form "Mothers Against Canada," blaming their neighbors to the north for their children's corruption and taking Terrance and Philip as war prisoners. It's up to the kids then to rescue their heroes from execution, not mention a brooding Satan, who's planning to take over the world.
To give away any more of the plot would destroy the fun, but this feature-length version of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Comedy Central hit is a dead-on and hilarious send-up of pop culture. And did we mention it's a musical? From the opening production number "Mountain Town" to the cheerful antiprofanity sing-along "It's Easy, MMMKay" to Satan's faux-Disney ballad "Up There," Parker (who wrote or cowrote all the songs) brilliantly shoots down every earnest musical from Beauty and the Beast to Les Misérables. And in advocating free speech and satirizing well-meaning but misguided parental censorship groups (with a special nod to the MPAA), Bigger, Longer & Uncut hits home against adult paranoia and hypocrisy with a vengeance. And the jokes, while indeed vulgar and gross, are hysterical; we can't repeat them here, especially the lyrics to Terrance and Philip's hit song, but you'll be rolling on the floor. Don't worry, though--to paraphrase Cartman, this movie won't warp your fragile little mind. Unless you have something against the First Amendment. --Mark Englehart
From The New Yorker
Trey Parker and Matt Stone's television-cartoon phenomenon about four potty-mouthed boys and the cold mountain town they live in gets a big, splashy, singing-and-dancing, R-rated feature-film début-and it's pretty damn fat-ass funny. Parker and Stone's animation style-brightly colored cutouts on minimally painted backgrounds-owes a whole lot to Colorforms, and its very cheesiness is endearing. The movie, basically a rant against the motion-picture rating system, features more foul language than "Fritz the Cat," and the exploits of Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman-who are trying to save South Park from a conflicted Devil (his boyfriend, Saddam Hussein, doesn't appreciate him)-are really just an excuse for some wonderful musical numbers that parody both Disney and Broadway. (The film opens just like "Oklahoma!" and has a show-stopping number sung by the Devil called "Up There" that kicks "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" 's butt.) -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker