Sedition and construction-paper puke

Rating: Null/10 (5 July 1999)

In its abhorrence of moms, the Army, appropriate viewing material, Bill Clinton's legacy-polishing through NATO bombing, Alan Menken scores, and finally itself, SOUTH PARK ranks among NATURAL BORN KILLERS and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE in the annals of studio movies that atomize every item of mainstream culture and dearly-held values that pass in their wake. Unfortunately, it doesn't equal those movies in acuity, skill, or even laughs. It's a ninety-minute movie in which construction-paper stick figures call each other testicle-biters. That the filmmakers manage to hold our interest with that material on a giant screen for an hour and a half is a heroic achievement; but the pre-release hype outpaces the movie--at least in the yuks department.
The movie suggests that Stone and Parker may be smart guys who could actually graduate from the poo-poo world; it also suggests that might not really believe all this scandalous stuff, any more than Howard Stern does when he pulls off a gross stunt to maintain his "outrageous" quotient. (You can sense him wanting to discuss politics, or talk to Albert Brooks.) The test of the movie's effectiveness for me, though, is that it really makes you angry at its satirical targets. It has an invigorating I'm-gonna-say-whatever-I-want-and-you-can't-stop-me quality--you wouldn't think anyone could work you up into a lather over nosy parents and Winona Ryder.
SOUTH PARK is a badly needed corrective to the protect-our-precious-children smarm that arose in the wake of the Littleton shooting--it's the only voice that has emerged in popular culture to say what's needed. It says the unspeakable--that all this protectiveness really isn't about the kids in question at all, but about parents' images of themselves. The weird thing about the picture is that it really is a movie of ideas--you come out wondering about Stone and Parker's politics more than you remember laugh lines. And the scenes in Hell, involving some poignant gay sex between Satan and Saddam Hussein, are more deliriously surreal than anything ever seen with a Warner Brothers label. But for all that, the Disney song parodies are endless, repetitive and endlessly repetitive; and Stone and Parker have more funny ideas than funny jokes. But they once seemed like a couple of obnoxious, gen-x frat boys in the manner of Kevin Smith. They ain't no more. If they put on a button-down shirt and get away from the scissors and rubber cement, they might grow into a millennial version of George Axelrod.