Review by Andrew L. Urban:
It runs for just 88 minutes but contains more ideas (and with 20 tracks, a lot more music) than three other movies put together. South Park is dark; it’s subversive in its flagrant satirical attack on selective morality, deep seated social hypocrisy and the moral fibre of matriarchal America. (It’s the mothers whose fear of kids using f words starts the war, and there’s not a single frame or reference to anyone’s father.)
It’s a film, in short, for all those who want to see American cinema shake up American insularity and ignorance. It is a radical film attacking censorship and will attract fear and loathing. And – from a different demographic - a squillion fans, who will relish the bravado and the editorial message. South Park oozes with creative juices (rather spicy ones) and the often misleadingly traditional musical styles are stapled to outrageously funny and vulgar lyrics. All of this is entertainingly packaged in a fast paced movie with plenty of payoffs, and it manages to poke fun at the personification of evil with exceptional scalpels. It won’t wear your brain cells out, but it isn’t a waste of time, either.
You’ll cackle and guffaw your way through this redneck little mountain town and its folks, always a touch unsure if it is crossing the boundaries of bad taste or just slicing your liver. It’s a wicked razor.
The DVD retains - indeed, exploits - the
crisp, amateurish colours of the cartoon, enhances the soundtrack
(which is the creative engine of this big, long and uncut foray
into excessive expletives) and generally enables you to offend
your neighbours at will. You will be disappointed only in the
fact that Trey and Co fail to appear in the commentary box, but
perhaps they think the star of the release should be the movie
itself. And true enough, what sort of commentary could you keep
up for 90 minutes or so behind a cartoon?
The satirical tone
seems to grow in inverse proportion to the shrinkage of the
screen, and a whole lotta wild fun can be had here with scene
jumps - if you're familiar with the material. The three teasers
are exactly that so we won't tell you about them and the
theatrical trailer is a hoot, a cheesy parody of all the worst
excesses of pseudo earnest trailers for real movies. The video
clip of What Would BB Do is another cool addition."
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