Home Page | Alphabetic Index | Ratings Index | Web Resources

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999)

A review by Damian Cannon.
Copyright © Movie Reviews UK 2000
More common than worms under a garden rock, any number of television-to-cinema adaptations can comfortably be recalled by present-day audiences. It seems that every other week a few more shuffle off the production line, just as quickly vanishing from neighbourhood screens. Most trade on the warm memory of a past hit, as with The Avengers, trusting that money will flow from a receptive public. A smaller number arise because the TV series is dead on its feet yet the producers wish to wring more dollars from their creative drones (think Beavis and Butthead Do America). Infinitesimal are the cases where a movie is made purely because it hands the makers a lusted after forum, a wider stage with less-censsorious, dramatically broader boundaries.

South Park is just such an endangered animal, a rare programme that flourishes when plucked from the creativity-depleted soil of television. The creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have obviously been crying out for this opportunity; nowhere else could their full-on culture-baiting comedy reach out to such a diversity of viewers. What's amazing is just how transparently the humour travels, perhaps an implicit sign of the depth to which North American cultural values have permeated world-wide, given that so many of the reference points rely on a knowledge of US imperial arrogance. Yet the attitudes expressed by South Park's inhabitants are hardly unique to the blinkered, inbred, redneck stereotype that they spring from; no, such child-parent mutual incomprehension is as familiar as breathing.

This angle ensures that South Park is astonishingly and magnificently funny, near painfully forcing recollection of long shelved memories. Yes, there is a copious tirade of inventive obscenity, a deluge of shocking filth and graphic violence, but that's beside the point. South Park is so far beyond the pointlessness of someone swearing continuously as to transcend such scatological non-humour. Joy comes from recognising how well the film captures that culture-gap between adult and non-adult, the unbridgeable gulf separating innocence and prudence. The kids don't grasp why others are so shocked by mere words, yet seeing this they derive enormous delight from discomforting the nearest grown-up. Meanwhile the adults (repressed puritans mostly) go ballistic at this distortion of their moral guidance, preferring to send young men to a bloody death rather than express a little tolerance.

The chilling aspect is just how close to the truth this feels, that all too many folk would rather argue through blows than realise how inconsequential life is and let it go. However, let's not forget that South Park also delivers a quite deliberate incredible shock value. Just when you've become accustomed to the latest assault on decency, another wave crashes down with tsumnai force; you can't but stagger helplessly into the aisles, amazed at their sheer audacity. Taken with an open mind, South Park's bravado parade of smart lines, smutty scenes, perceptive commentary and distinctive characters rolls with hilarious momentum. Without this essential tool, Parker and Stone are likely to stun you speechless.

Curiously, the pretend-amateur animation never becomes an issue, the script is too nimble to allow that. It doesn't even come across as some rebellion against the over-produced, effects-driven visuals of other nominally similar movies. Simply put, the iron-flat figures are a means to an end, though one which belies the professionalism of South Park. The script is tight, the storyboarding accurate and the scattered tunes wonderful in a crude sing-a-long fashion. The creative duo even made their voices clearly spoken, apart from the definitively muffled Kenny; it makes the movie so much easier to comprehend than the often bizarrely accented TV show. Thinking back, this feature surpasses its small-screen source in almost every way; if you feel that this amounts to a recommendation then South Park may well be just what you're looking for.

Home Page | Alphabetic Index | Ratings Index | Web Resources