Watched this at Sid's place last night, but I think that Rob was the driving force behind its choice (having only decided to join them and the others somewhat after the last minute, I didn't have any say). In a nutshell, it's a satire targeting the state of the world today, with a particular focus on American foreign policy and terrorism and, in the process, a take on the jingoistic tendencies of mainstream Hollywood action blockbusters; also, it's all animated by puppets (strings visible), and done by the people behind South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Team America starts quite promisingly, lampooning both aforementioned action film conventions/clichés and the nationalistic 'world police' attitude (in Australia, 'deputy sheriff', anyone?) often identified with the US (government) which mirror and are mirrored in such films; and if the humour is tasteless and the satire rather blunt, these faults are partially compensated for by the actual laughs that are sometimes induced.
About midway through, though, the pious left also starts coming in for a serious bashing, with 'social campaigning' actors and Michael Moore getting it in the neck. Now, there's nothing wrong with that in itself - satire, while often outright polemical, can also be unsparing of both 'sides' of a supposed opposition, especially where there's cant and posturing on each end. But the problem here is that ultimately Team America is sunk by a failure of both imagination and vision - its perspective is wholly negative and so finally unsatisfying. If it were funnier, this wouldn't have mattered so much; conversely, if its satire were sharper or more well-targeted, the puerile humour would have been much more overlookable, or could even have come to function as an integral element of the critique. But as it stands, while a part of me admires the attitude behind it, I thought that Team America was too much of a mess to be worth the watching.
