South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

Directed by: Trey Parker | 81 minutes | comedy, animation, musical | Original voice cast: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, George Clooney, Isaac Hayes, Eric Idle, Mary Kay Bergman, Jesse Howell, Anthony Cross-Thomas, Franchesca Clifford, Bruce Howell, Deb Adair, Jennifer Howell, Brent Spiner, Minnie Driver, Dave Foley

Forget ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘My Fair Lady’, or animated musicals like ‘The Beauty and the Beast’. A revolution has started in the musical world. No, this is not about the postmodern ‘Moulin Rouge’, but about the animated film ‘South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut’, which revolves around the experiences of some children in the “quiet, narrow mountain village” South Park, such as the main characters characterize their hometown themselves in the cheerful opening number.

Yes, you heard that right, folks: the movie version of the hit South Park series has taken the form of a musical. This must be a joke, of course, since the filthy residents of South Park don’t fit into such a merry, sweet musical structure. Yet the satirical content of many of the songs is disappointing, and it starts to look suspiciously like the makers just love musicals. The opening song still manages to make fun of these kinds of films. The character Stan walks happily singing through his village, while the deer and birds around him share in his joy. In this song, his friends are also introduced to us in a funny way (and we see, for example, what Kenny looks like without his constricting hood). This song sets the tone for the movie in a nice way (although it all gets much more extreme).

The satire is only sometimes too pronounced here, and is therefore less effective. When we see Cartman and his friends stepping over a bum we don’t need the verbal addition: “you see homeless people, but you just don’t care”. Expressing the joke explicitly makes it less sharp. The same goes for the comment: “the movies teach us what the parents don’t have time to say”. An indirect wording or imagination would have worked better here.

But it might be a bit silly to accuse South Park of lack of subtlety. South Park is blunt and rude, and proud of it. In that respect, the film offers possibilities that are not available in the series. About two hundred obscene statements are made within the playing time of just under eighty minutes. Many a celebrity, population group or institution is being tackled, and the term “poo and pee humor” is given a whole new meaning by Terrance and Phillip, the Canadian protagonists from the film “Asses of Fire”.

This rudeness usually works very well, although some jokes require you to be in the mood or to get over a certain point of excess (if something rude is repeated often enough or presented in a very exaggerated way, it sometimes becomes funny on its own). There are some nice jokes in it (like the bombing of the Baldwins), but it is mainly the blunt, characteristic way in which the well-known characters behave and interact with each other that makes the film worthwhile. And that’s how it should be: the film should be about the wayward inhabitants of this narrow-minded village; especially about Kyle, Stan, Cartman, and Kenny. That’s why it’s a shame that too often there is a deviation to sub stories, uninteresting characters or musical interludes that are not sufficiently funny or do not know how to captivate. For example, Satan’s song “Up There” is initially a nice parody of similar Disney songs, but it goes on too long. More than half of the songs are uninteresting and just keep up the story. The same goes for the whole part that takes place with the gay couple Satan and Saddam Hussein, and the (preparation for the) crusade against Canada by the evil mothers.

Fortunately, there is generally enough humor in it to keep the attention (the first twenty minutes are already a good introduction). The typical animation style remains amusing (and is ridiculed in the film itself in a dry way), and the precious voices of the illustrious foursome (and many other characters) already contain a lot of humor. It’s just a shame that the makers don’t rely enough on the power of their own characters and add too many bells and whistles to make it “epic”. Nevertheless, the fans will not be bored.