Film

Team America: World Police

Trey Parker and Matt Stone's marionette action spoof sends a CIA puppet squad after Kim Jong-il, torching Bruckheimer bombast and celebrity activism with equal glee. It's gleefully juvenile, weirdly well-choreographed, and stuffed with songs you'll be embarrassed to remember. Best for anyone who finds both mindless jingoism and Hollywood sanctimony funny, and can sit through puppet sex without flinching.

TMDb rating6.7

If you liked this

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut1999

Same anarchic songwriting duo, same appetite for skewering every side of an argument, proving they'd already perfected the outrageous-musical-with-real-heart trick before puppets entered the picture.

But If Team America's shock humor wore you out, this delivers even more profanity and gleeful bad taste, nonstop.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut poster

Tropic Thunder2008

Hollywood ego and war-movie machismo get torched with the same gleeful contempt Team America has for celebrity activism, just with actors instead of marionettes.

But It's a more conventional star-comedy vehicle, less structurally audacious, so it won't hit quite the same satirical nerve.

Tropic Thunder poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Thunderbirds1965

Team America's puppetry is a direct homage to Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation technique from this show, same wooden gait and miniature vehicle spectacle, aimed here at sincere 1960s adventure instead of satire.

Seeing the straight-faced original makes the parody funnier in hindsight: earnest, inventive puppet sci-fi rescue drama with real craft behind the visible strings.

But It's a slow, sincere kids' adventure show with zero jokes at its own expense, so the tonal whiplash is total.

Thunderbirds poster
More like this (8)

The Interview2014no page yet

Another North Korean dictator becomes a comedy target, this time via bumbling American entertainers rather than puppets, with the same willingness to court an actual diplomatic incident.

But Rogen and Franco's stoner-bromance energy is a different flavor of dumb, less song-and-dance, more slapstick sincerity.

Idiocracy2006

Mike Judge's vision of American stupidity run amok shares Team America's contempt for both idiot patriotism and smug elite hand-wringing.

But It's quieter and sadder underneath the jokes, more cautionary tale than action-movie pastiche.

Idiocracy poster

Starship Troopers1997

A big dumb action blockbuster that's secretly a vicious satire of militaristic propaganda, exactly the kind of double-agent movie Team America is spoofing.

But Verhoeven plays it entirely straight-faced, so the satire is stealthier and plenty of viewers miss it outright.

Starship Troopers poster

Wag the Dog1997

A sharp, cynical comedy about manufacturing a war for television, a spiritual ancestor to Team America's media-and-war satire, minus the puppets and explosions.

But It's a talky political comedy with no action set pieces, a much lower-key evening.

Wag the Dog poster

Hot Shots!1991

Pure genre-parody slapstick aimed at gung-ho action movies, the kind of dumb-on-purpose spoofing Team America's puppet battles are lovingly ripping off.

But It's broader and sillier, with none of the political bite that gives Team America its edge.

Hot Shots! poster

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!1988

The granddaddy of deadpan American genre spoofs, essential if you want to trace where this whole style of so-dumb-it's-genius comedy comes from.

But Dated slapstick and a police-procedural target rather than war movies or politics, so the satire lands very differently.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! poster

Meet the Feebles1989no page yet

Peter Jackson's gross-out puppet musical proved years earlier that felt and foam characters could do graphic sex and depravity for shock comedy, a direct ancestor to Team America's infamous puppet sex scene.

A berserk, filthy, wildly inventive puppet cabaret that goes further than Team America ever dares, from a director who'd later make Lord of the Rings.

But Genuinely disgusting in places, cheaply made, and has no political target at all, just anarchic grossness for its own sake.

Why We Fight2005no page yet

This sober documentary examines the same military-industrial machine and reflexive American interventionism that Team America turns into puppet-explosion comedy, same subject matter, entirely opposite register.

A clear-eyed, serious look at how war gets sold to the public, a useful gut-check right after laughing at a movie that mocks the exact same impulse.

But It's a standard talking-heads documentary, dry and earnest, with zero interest in being entertaining.

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Recommended by

Tropic Thunder, Anomalisa, Starship Troopers, In the Loop, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Muppet Show, The Lego Movie, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Thunderbirds Are Go, Hot Shots!, Digger, Duck Soup, The Mouse That Roared, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut