A strong message, well delivered

Rating: 9/10 (3 July 1999)

My previous experience with South Park had been limited to one viewing of the "Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo" episode, so I wasn't expecting much from this movie. I was pleasantly surprised, not only at the number of belly laughs, but that the theme of the film is something I've been saying for years: It is unconscionable to "protect" our children from words and ideas, while exposing them to the most graphic and gratuitous violence imaginable.
We don't allow children to see movies where people take their clothes off, or make love. If a movie contains two people of the same gender expressing ordinary affection for one another, God forbid, audience members had better be at least 18. But if the hero is blasting away with an automatic weapon in each hand, while dodging a hail of bullets, it's nothing but a rollicking good time.
There's something very sad about a society in which sex in the context of a caring relationship is obscene, but the taking of human life is not. It was not lost on me that South Park is set in a small town in Colorado.
Sure the movie is rife with potty humor, and the f-word ricochets off the screen like bullets in "The Matrix." But sex talk and fart jokes won't hurt us, and we know all to well the consequences of young people who are predisposed to violent behavior becoming inured to its consequences.
There are great laughs in "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." I loved seeing Satan agonize over his failing relationship with Saddam Hussein. The musical production numbers are a glorious send-up of the kind of saccharine crap that Disney animated films are rife with, with titles like "Cartland's Mother is a Big Fat Bitch" and "What Would Brian Boitano Do?". And Brook Shields (voiced by Minnie Driver) confesses that she once farted on the set of "Blue Lagoon."
Sure the animation is a little crude. But the plot is cohesive, the humor is full of heart, and the message is much more evolved than that of any movie ever made by Quentin Tarantino or his ilk.