Team America: World Police
Short description
Team America: World Police is a 2004 action comedy featuring marionettes, made by the team behind South Park. It follows a squad of international operatives who travel the world using heavy weaponry to fight terrorism, whether or not anyone has asked for their help. When they learn that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is planning a large-scale attack involving weapons of mass destruction, they recruit Gary Johnston, a struggling Broadway actor, to infiltrate a terrorist group undercover. Their mission brings them into conflict not only with Kim Jong-il but also with the Film Actors Guild, a group of Hollywood celebrities who oppose the team's approach to policing the globe.
Trey Parker directed the film, his third feature after Orgazmo in 1998 and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut in 1999, and wrote the screenplay with Matt Stone and Pam Brady. Parker and Stone also voice most of the characters, with Parker handling Gary Johnston, Kim Jong-il and several celebrity impressions, while Kristen Miller, Masasa Moyo and Daran Norris provide additional voices. Produced on a budget of 32 million dollars, the film took in about 51 million dollars worldwide. It holds a 7.2 rating on IMDb from roughly 185,000 votes and a 6.7 on TMDB from about 2,100 votes, while the film critics' rating stands at 7.1 from 196 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- All the dolls used in the film have bodies of two types (male and female), with differences only in the heads. The creators made only one exception for Kim Jong-il, to make him appear smaller than the other characters.
- The transformation of the car from ordinary to jet-powered on the streets of New York parodies similar scenes in the films "Men in Black" and "Men in Black II".
- In the DVD commentary, the filmmakers stated that they tried to make all the plants shown in the film resemble marijuana leaves.
- Each doll’s head contained around 9 devices that allowed control over the characters’ emotions and facial expressions.
- A real actor, subjected to a makeup attack, played the statue in Kim Jong-il's palace. In the very first scene with the statue, you can notice the movement of the eyelashes when blinking.
- The objects and accessories located in the rooms were created life-size, as if reminding viewers of the dolls’ tiny size.
- The scene in the Egyptian bar parodies a similar scene in the infamous location of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" episode "A New Hope." In particular, the "Derka Derk (The Terrorist Theme)" playing there parodies the music from "Star Wars"; also in the background you can see dolls resembling Han Solo and Greedo.
- North Korean slogans in Kim Jong-il's palace are written according to the rules of South Korean orthography.
- DVDA’s song “Montage,” which plays during Gary Spottswood’s preparation, previously appeared in a different version in the “Aspen” episode of "South Park."
- The film ranks 19th in Quentin Tarantino's list of the twenty best films since 1992.
- On the world map displayed by the supercomputer, there is no border between Egypt and Sudan.
- Due to the dolls' sexual intercourse, the film received an NC-17 rating. The scene was edited nine times until the film finally received an R rating, which is what the creators had hoped for.
- The first promotional video was shown at a comedy forum held in San Diego in 2004. The video began with the following slogan: "Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Janine Garofalo, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, George Bush, John Kerry… they will all hate this movie!". The advertising teaser, intended for cinema release, included even more celebrity names.
- During the scene depicting the destruction of several countries, the creators of the film also show the USA. Interestingly, one of the cinemas shows films released simultaneously with “Team America: World Police”: “Heartbreakers” and “Seed of Chucky”.
- The idea for the film came in 2003 when Matt Stone and Trey Parker were watching some episodes of the television series "Thunderbirds" (1964). Until that point, Trey Parker had not seen a single episode of the show and was quite intrigued after watching it. It was at that moment that the two decided to make an action film with puppets as the main actors. "We have to make a film that will outdo all of Bruckheimer's stuff in scope" (Jerry Bruckheimer is one of Hollywood's most famous producers, known for his spectacular blockbusters).
- Bill Pope agreed to be the cinematographer of the film to experience something long forgotten. Recently, Bill has worked on films ("The Matrix," "Spider-Man") where most of the material had to be shot against a blue or green screen.
- Dmitry Puchkov, well-known to the Russian film audience under the nickname Goblin, was invited to participate in the film's voiceover for the first time.
- Before Parker and Stone agreed on the film's plot, one idea was to create a puppet version of the disaster film "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004). The main reason this idea was not realized was the problem of acquiring the rights to use the plot devices and characters.
- Initially, Matt Damon was supposed to appear as an intelligent young man who clearly expresses his thoughts, but the costume designers working on creating Matt’s puppet failed, and the doll of the actor turned out with a rather sour expression. However, they decided not to change anything, and Matt Damon (or rather, the puppet portraying him) appeared before the audience in such a sluggish and listless manner.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
