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Movie Review: 'South Park' movie revels in its really bad behavior
Wednesday, June 30, 1999 By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor
I was talking on the telephone to someone who had just seen "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" and who still seemed a bit shellshocked.
Rating: R for extremely vulgar language, nudity, sexual references and violence.
Starring the voices of: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes.
Director: Trey Parker.
Critic's call: 2 1/2 stars.
"So you don't think I should take my kids to the screening?" I said, as if I were that stupid.
"Don't take them even if you think they're old enough," came the reply.
Good advice. It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the TV cartoon that the movie version, freed from whatever content restrictions may still exist on cable, allows "South Park" third-graders Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Cartman to let loose with a barrage of foul language that would make longshoremen blush.
But there's method to this madness. The agent provocateurs behind "South Park," co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, use their regressively juvenile property as an anti-censorship screed that appears on the nation's movie screens with exquisite timing, smack dab in the middle of the post-Columbine furor over Hollywood's role in corrupting America's minors.
Parker, who directed the movie and co-wrote it with Stone, all but pleads guilty to the charge and not only wears it as a badge of honor but, with typical insouciance, uses it as justification for their actions. They're out to shock you as much as they can -- and then to make you think about why it shocks you and about what doesn't shock you but should.
Then again, this is a pair of filmmakers who employ the most primitive animation -- the characters and settings are little more than paper cutouts -- and snigger like adolescents who have just discovered how much attention they can get by telling poo-poo jokes, showing irreverence toward virtually anything adults hold sacred, just plain acting gross and demonstrating that kids really do say the darnedest things, none of them as bland as "darnedest."
Again, their offensiveness works as a kind of defense. America could have just ignored "South Park." Instead, the show became for a time the hottest ticket on television and a merchandising juggernaut. Some of its biggest fans are adolescents who, if movie theaters are serious about enforcing the age limit on R movies, won't get in to see it -- which won't stop them from trying or from conning a parent into taking them.
Parents? Listen. Think of every possible permutation of the F-word. Hyphenate these to words representing various members of the family, including species of pet. Imagine an audience of cartoon 8-year-olds attending a movie where they hear all of these epithets, then realize how many real-life under-17s want to see the movie. Once the film's characters start repeating the words at home, in school, in church, then you'll understand why you should just say no.
Of course, you needn't go as far as the adults in the movie. They find out their kids learned the words from a Canadian movie (darned foreigners) and wind up declaring war on our northern neighbors.
To be fair, the cinematic "South Park" can boast its share of humor so goofy that one almost has to laugh. Imagine Satan and Saddam Hussein as squabbling lovers in Hell, using the U.S.-Canada war as a springboard for taking over the world. All Saddam can think about is sex and world domination. Satan turns out to be the sensitive one, wishing for time to smell the roses.
The movie takes its share of potshots against the censors, the critics and celebrities ranging from Winona Ryder to Brooke Shields. And amid all the swearing, the South Park kids punctuate the film with nimble parodies of Broadway show anthems, of all things, the better to heighten the absurdity of the proceedings.
To Parker and Stone, nothing is more absurd than our hysteria over bad words (or sexual images) as opposed to the way Americans not only tolerate but encourage graphic violence.
They have a point. But they conveniently forget that words have power and can hurt. And even anti-censorship crusaders will acknowledge that children are not ready to see pornography. Just watch how the "South Park" youngsters react in the scene where they cruise sex sites on the Internet. Heck, Stan throws up every time he merely talks to the girl he likes.
Not everything is for kids. That includes "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut."
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