Best comedy this year, best musical in years

Rating: 10/10 (2 July 1999)

...but *not* for children. I saw it the opening day, and the theater was doing a good job of keeping kids out. The second day I saw it again at the same theater, and a lot more kids were getting in.
At any rate, the movie is well paced, it starts off with a bang then settles down a bit as the plot races along. The language is foul beyond belief, but it is there for a purpose as a key plot element. The violence towards the end is as close as a cartoon has ever come to "Private Ryan", and the sexual elements were a shock to even this die-hard South Park fan. I really don't know how "Orgazmo" got NC-17 and this movie got an R, "Orgazmo" is pretty tame by comparison.
The songs are well done, advancing the plot as well as entertaining the audience and spoofing half the musicals ever made. Anybody that can make a hummable, toe-tapping song composed entirely of farts deserves an oscar for sheer inventiveness, while the "Up There" number easily matches anything from Disney for sappy sentimentality. The last half of the movie is loaded with very well-done spoofs of Evita and Lez Miserables that are clearly targeted at a higher audience than the stereotypical pimply-faced juvenile delinquent that is the widely presumed audience for "South Park" (BTW, the first night's packed crowd was largely composed of 25-35 white-collar professional *couples*, all laughing so hard it was frequently difficult to hear the dialogue).
The comedy is widely varied, compassing lowbrow humor such as bodily functions, racism, and sex, to much more highbrow humor intertwined with political and social commentary, such as the ironic Anne Frank-like scene where a Jewish character hides a Canadian character in the attic to save him from the soldiers and death camps (did I say "death camps"? I meant "happy camps").
I thought it was definitely a home run, easily surpassing even the best of the first 6 episodes. Being commercial-free and 80 minutes long only made it better, and certainly made up for the many marginal episodes since the first batch came out.