South Park-Bigger Longer & Uncut Blu-Ray Review
Trey Parker, Matt Stone Produce Cartoon Film For Paramount
Oct 9, 2009
Paramount Pictures' South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut was a surprise hit, rescuing both the Comedy Central show and creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's careers. It was a brilliantly offensive and funny satire, which audiences and critics applauded.
Unfortunately, Paramount and the South Park gang don't take advantage of the Blu-Ray system's increased capacity in this new home video release, opting instead to simply add a new audio commentary from the film's creative masterminds.
Trey Parker, Matt Stone Produce and Star in Paramount Pictures' South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
In 1999, South Park was in trouble. After the kudos lavished upon the show's first season, Parker and Stone unwisely concentrated on live-action films like Orgazmo and BASEketball, neither of which did well.
South Park's scripts suffered (Parker and Stone admitted the 2nd and 3rd seasons "sucked") and pundits were ready to write off both the show and its creators.
Realizing their time in Hollywood was almost up, Parker and Stone resolved to "leave with their heads held high" and create the most offensive South Park movie they could think of. The result featured a song called 'Shut Your F*****g Face, Uncle F***ah,' Saddam Hussein romancing Satan, Winona Ryder playing with ping-pong balls, and concluded with a battle between the US and Canada.
It featured an offensive word or action in every six seconds of footage, sprinting into the 2001 Guinness Book of World Records for "Most Swearing in an Animated Film": 399 profanities, including 139 uses of the word 'f***,' 79 uses of 's***,' and 66 uses of 'b****,' 128 offensive gestures and 221 acts of violence.
Parker and Stone battled Paramount Pictures, who wanted the film to have a PG-13 rating, the MPAA – who nixed the original subtitle All Hell Breaks Loose in favour of their second choice, only to freak out two weeks later when they finally got the joke – and their own animators, who wanted to bunk off in the middle of production and watch Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
How does Bigger, Longer and Uncut hold up 10 years later? Quite well. Although the references have dated, nearly all the gags still work and the issues it satirizes are still highly relevant. Yes, the animation is crude but that's been a hallmark of the show from the very beginning: why stop now?
If you can handle the copious swearing and raunchy images, this film is still a highly intelligent satire and presents the shocking view that parents should spend more time with their kids instead of trying to sanitize the world.
Blu-Ray Extras
Other than the theatrical trailers and a music video for "What Would Brian Boitano Do," the only real extra is a new audio commentary by Parker and Stone. It starts off promisingly enough with the creators discussing the mayhem they went through trying to get this movie made.
It's funny, insightful and scathingly honest, especially when they're talking about the film's visual shortcomings. The problem is: they run out of gas halfway through the film. They try to stretch things out by bringing in other members of the crew, but it's clear the spark's gone out of this commentary. It doesn't help that everyone asks, "Did you talk about the Oscar thing yet?" until you want to scream at the screen, "YES!!!!!"
The Final Analysis
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is still rude, lewd, crude and funny as ****. It's a shame that Parker, Stone and Paramount didn't give this animated film the Blu-Ray release it deserves.
That's why this reissue gets a 6/10.
Fun Fact: Parker and Stone admit they haven't received much of Bigger, Longer and Uncut's profits (see "Hollywood accounting"), which is why there hasn't been another South Park movie since then.
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