7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.2 |
Popular Broadway actor Gary Johnston is recruited by the elite counterterrorism organization Team America: World Police. As the world begins to crumble around him, he must battle with terrorists, celebrities and falling in love.
Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kristen Miller, Daran Norris, Phil HendrieComedy | 100% |
Dark humor | 70% |
Musical | 12% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
I mean, I love Team America. I'm glad we did it, I'm proud of it. But would I ever do it again? No. — Matt StoneThe comic bad-boy duo of Trey Parker and Matt Stone have several fan bases. The largest are habitual viewers of their satirical animated series, South Park, now in its nineteenth season on the Comedy Central network. More occasional (but no less devoted) fans are those who appreciate the Parker/Stone parodies of popular art forms, especially musical theater. These are the people who flocked to the pair's theatrical debut, The Book of Mormon, when it was still in previews and no one knew whether it would even survive the opening. (The show is now in its fifth year.) During those early performances, Parker and Stone sat in a box near the front of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, focusing intently not on the stage but on the audience below, studying reactions to every song and gag. (I know this, because I was in one of the preview audiences they were observing.) Seated next to them was their co-writer on Mormon, Robert Lopez, who had already achieved theatrical success with Avenue Q, a musical entirely about puppets and their travails in life. Thus did fate conspire to unite the creative forces behind two 21st Century classics of puppetry to write a hugely successful musical about the equally unlikely subject of Mormonism. There should never have been any doubt that Parker and Stone could write a popular musical for the stage, because they'd already done it twice for the movies: once with the big screen version of their TV show, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (or "SP:BLU"); and then again with Team America: World Police, their tribute to "Supermarionated" shows of the Sixties such as Thunderbirds and Supercar. Both SP:BLU and Team America employed time-honored musical theater devices that Parker has confessed on numerous occasions are dear to his heart. (He cries at Les Miserables.) He has proudly reported being complimented on the songs of both films by no less an authority than Stephen Sondheim. SP:BLU has long been available on Blu-ray. Paramount is now releasing Team America on Blu-ray through its licensing and distribution deal with Warner. Unfortunately, although the film is decently represented, Paramount has omitted the substantial extras previously included on its DVDs of Team America.
The Matrix trilogy's cinematographer, Bill Pope, shot Team America: World Police, and he has spoken at length about the challenges of recreating an action movie style with puppets and miniature sets. Although the film was released in 2004, there is no indication in the credits or elsewhere that post-production was completed on a digital intermediate, although digital effects were employed, including compositing of multiple figures, where the scene called for more puppets than could be accommodated on a single set. The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray being distributed by Warner appears to be the exact same disc that Paramount released abroad in 2013. The plethora of language options indicates that the data package has been prepared for worldwide release, whereas discs specially prepared for North American coverage under the Paramount/Warner licensing detail have typically been limited to English, French and/or Spanish. However, even though the transfer isn't brand new, it's reasonably good, due in no small part to the crisp lighting style. Detail is good, blacks are solid and colors are strong without oversaturation. The film's Super35 photography is fine-grained, but the grain pattern does not appear to have suffered from untoward digital manipulation. With no extras to take up space (see below), Team America has been authored at an average bitrate of 33.74 Mbps, and the compression has been carefully done. Note that the location shots of Gary Johnston at national monuments during "Freedom Isn't Free" are of noticeably lesser quality than the rest of the film, but this appears to be inherent to the source.
As much as a film featuring puppets can have an aggressive sound mix, Team America has a kind of parody of an action soundtrack, with much gunfire, numerous explosions and sounds of aircraft cruising, diving, evading and dogfighting. Bass extension is serious but not excessive. Dialogue is always clear, even with some of the outlandish accents adopted by Parker and Stone in their efforts to differentiate multiple characters. Henry Gregson-Williams had only a short time in which to compose the score, after the studio rejected Mark Shaiman's version, but Gregson-Williams had worked on enough Bruckheimer projects to turn around something that was both comic and authentic, and it sounds great. The songs, by either Parker, or Parker with Shaiman, sound equally good.
Paramount released three DVD editions of Team America in 2005 (theatrical widescreen, theatrical fullscreen and unrated widescreen), and all of them came with the same rich collection of extras: trailers, deleted scenes, animated storyboards and nine featurettes. The Blu-ray has none of these extras or, indeed, any extras at all. Also, unlike most previous Paramount releases through Warner, this disc appears to have been prepared entirely by Paramount; the company's logo flashes briefly when the disc loads. The only positive note is that bookmarking functionality has been included with the BD-Java coding.
In an interview given just as Team America was being released, Parker and Stone acknowledged that many people would probably hate the film. Although it recouped its cost, it saw nothing like the success of SP:BLU. Maybe it was the era, but then again the so-called "war on terror" remains as polarizing an issue today as it was in 2004. Regardless of one's views on the subject, Team America is a unique film by anyone's standard. Avoid it if you're easily offended, but otherwise it's worth your time. The Blu-ray is technically acceptable, but for leaving off all the extras, Paramount/Warner shouldn't get anything more than a rock-bottom sale price.
2004
Uncensored and Unrated
2004
20th Anniversary Limited Edition
2004
Bigger, Longer & Uncut 4K
1999
2006
2012
2016
1985
2002-2006
2013
1983
1996
2002
2015
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2016
2008
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2013
Director's Cut
2008
2013-2014
1993