Wednesday, June 30, 1999
'South Park:' Nothing's sacred, and nearly everthing's profane
BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
I won't make any excuses. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is indefensible, filled wall to wall with language so foul it could make a longshoreman faint. Now ask me if I laughed.
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MOVIE REVIEW
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South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
(R; extreme profanity, cartoon nudity) Voices of Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Issac Hayes. Directed by Trey Parker.
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Oh yes. Howled like a banshee, I did. But I felt really guilty about it, so maybe I won't go straight to hell - where, as it happens, about a third of the movie takes place. Mostly in a bedroom shared by Satan and Saddam Hussein.
The rest takes place in South Park, the Colorado town where a quartet of curious, potty-mouthed boys set a tragedy in motion by sneaking in to see an R-rated movie featuring their favorite comic characters.
Next thing you know, the United States is attacking Canada, bombs are falling on the Baldwin brothers, World War III is about to break out, Saddam and Satan are plotting to rule the world, and a lovestruck little boy is searching the countryside for a small but crucial portion of a woman's anatomy.
Amid the action - featuring guest voice appearances by George Clooney, Minnie Driver and Eric Idle - one boy dies when he tries to light his farts and another is implanted with a device to shock him each time he swears.
One more thing: It's a musical. That means full-blown Broadway-style production numbers, including a spot-on parody of Les Miserables, plus such sprightly tunes as “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” Most of the cleverly written songs can't be listed in a family newspaper, dealing as they do with crimes against nature.
Funny stuff, this, but please don't let children anywhere near it. A kid who showed up at school repeating these jokes wouldn't be punished; he would be hospitalized.
How this movie emerged from the Motion Picture of America Association (MPAA) rating process without an NC-17 is a mystery. Maybe the rating panel just went numb under the barrage of obscenity from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the obviously demented creators of the South Park TV series and this film.
The TV show has been criticized from day one for bad language, so presumably the filmmakers felt an obligation to make their big-screen version a showcase for the vilest offenses in the English language. They are making a point, namely that censorship is wrong, and all the gross blasphemy in the world is just words.
However, the law of diminishing returns applies here. The language gets laughs because it's shocking. But as it loses the ability to shock, it also loses the capacity to tickle. When that happens, all that's left is the literal meaning, which is mostly ugly.
Still, before they wear out their welcome, the South Park boys take a mad plunge into wild, wooly outrage - and come up with fistfuls of funny.
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