I was never the biggest South Park fan, and Bigger, Longer & Uncut hasn’t done much to change that. It still has the show’s bratty, anything-for-a-reaction energy, and now and then that does land. But South Park has always felt funniest when it’s immediate — jabbing at the present tense rather than preserved behind glass.
Twenty-seven years on, some of that bite has inevitably dulled. The shock tactics are less shocking, and satire this tied to its moment can start to feel like old headlines with swear words. A few songs still hit, mind. Irritatingly effective.
What surprised me was how some of it has come back round. The war hysteria, the moral panic, America treating Canada like a joke or a possession — it doesn’t feel quite so dusty after Trump’s repeated “51st state” talk about Canada. Maybe that gives it a second life. It still didn’t fully win me over, but perhaps history has done some of the film’s work for it.