Team America: World Police

Herald rating: * * *

They sure have matured. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the cutting wits behind South Park, have gone from the cut-out animation and inspired creations such as Mr Hanky of South Park to string puppets and political satire.

In Team America: World Police they take aim at the War on Terror and don't care who gets caught in the crossfire.

Yes, they're sending up the parallels between gung-ho action flicks and America's efforts abroad, but also getting strung up along the way are outspoken liberals such as Michael Moore, and North Korean despot Kim Jong Il.

There's gay jokes, there's the most spectacular vomiting scene since The Meaning of Life, there's characters who disguise themselves as Arabs by wearing towels on their heads, and - just as there was with the South Park movie - there's lots of comedy songs. Maybe two or three too many. Though the rousing stadium rock theme tune America [Expletive] Yeah! and Kim Jong Il's I'm So Ronery are worryingly memorable.

If only the rest of the movie itself could find a key it liked.

Yes, it is done with puppets and initially that's highly amusing, whether it's a fight or a sex scene which must have had them undoing knots for days.

But the problem with TA:WP is that in its equal-opportunity barrage of insults it's only point of view seems to be defending the right to be obnoxious. Which is fine and sporadically funny.

It will appal and amuse even left-leaning Thunderbirds fans, though they might be more worried about how the marionette of Alec Baldwin looks like the evil Captain Black from Captain Scarlet.

DIRECTORS: Matt Stone, Trey Parker
RATING: R16 (violence, offensive language, sex scenes)
RUNNING TIME: 99 mins
SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas