Hilarious, thought provoking and touching

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2001)

South Park The Movie is, of course, a movie about the reaction to movies like South Park The Movie. Terrance and Phillip The Movie - the fictional piece that drives the plot is, like South Park, designed for adults but with attractions for children, as all things adult are. When our heroes are "corrupted" by the film, the film becomes the source of all of societies ills and the battle to destroy it and everything related to it escalates to full scale warfare.
Along the way, the unabashed language actually hits several major funny bones once you get over the shock. Like the boys, you enjoy mastering the shock and using the language to shock others, then blaming the movie for your behaviour. The broad satire of a manipulative Saddam Hussein, pursuing his own agenda, could actually make you bust a gut laughing.
But it was the empathy which you feel for the characters that actually made this movie special. Your sympathies are for the characters with real problems like poor little Kenny (punished severely for missing church), Satan (in a disfunctional relationship), and Chef (once again being treated to a large helping of casual racism). The characters who think they have a problem, like Kyle's crusading mother, get less sympathetic as the film goes on and their concern about the well being of their children grows. However, all's well that ends well, and everyone (well, almost everyone) winds up being redeemed, even good old Satan.