SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT (1999) (***1/2)

The death of so many TV to film adaptations is that what works as a half hour on TV feels padded and drawn out as a feature film. Trey Parker and Matt Stone took the essence of their button pushing television series and expanded on it. Filled with hilarious songs, the film allowed Parker and Stone to be even more outrageous than they could be on TV. And they get to stick it to their critics real good.

Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny are dying to see the big screen debut of their favorite Canadian comedy duo, Terrance and Phillip. Titled "Asses of Fire," the foul-mouthed feature influences the children of South Park to use the worst language thinkable. I can't even write the title of the big song from the film. Irate, Kyle's mother Shelia Broflovski (Mary Kay Bergman) wages war against Canada. And when I mean war, I literally mean war.

The film earned an Oscar nomination for the song "Blame Canada." The tune encapsulates the entire theme of the film. The parents of South Park want to blame every outside source for their failures at parenting. Parker and Stone take their premise to the extremes and mine it for all the laughs and poignancy they can. A particularly funny and smart moment is when in CLOCKWORK ORANGE style Cartman's brain is wired to a V-chip that shocks him every time he says a curse word.

This leads right into the second element that works so well. Parker and Stone ingeniously work in the catch phrases and standards of the series without forcing them. The routine of Kenny dying in each episode is used brilliantly to bring the story to Hell, where Satan is hilariously having an affair with the recently killed Saddam Hussein. Satan and Saddam's plot to take over the world just helps underline the ridiculousness of Shelia's campaign against potty mouthed kids.

Of course Parker and Stone push the boundaries of taste as far as they can within the R-rated movie framework. But that is part of the point. The problem with the freedom of speech is that people will say things that you might not like. Some people will not like some of the things that Parker and Stone have his animated children say in this film. But where do we draw the line? Shelia calls for the execution of Terrance and Phillip. Is that taking things to an extreme? In the real world, maybe in America, but how about a place like Iraq?