South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut 25th Anniversary 4K Review
South Park's now on 4K and we'll have ourselves a time.
Two years after bursting onto the scene with its Comedy Central debut, South Park danced its way to the big screen with a feature-length musical that parents at the time could not have been less excited about. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was a commercial success and critical darling upon its release in 1999, and to this day it remains one of the brightest highlights of the entire South Park franchise. To celebrate its 25th anniversary this year, Paramount gave it a complete 4K makeover and released a special 25th Anniversary Edition of that 4K disc for fans to enjoy.
The Movie
If you didn't know it, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is essentially a movie about the panic around South Park (and other films and shows like it). This musical edition of the iconic comedy sees a raunchy Canadian movie become a hit amongst America's youth, causing an outbreak in foul language. In order to combat the bad words, the parents of America launch a full scale war on our neighbors to the North.
I'm beyond happy to report that South Park's big screen adventure holds up even better than expected. There are a couple of jokes here and there that don't land quite like they did in middle or high school, but there are more jokes that have gotten even funnier over the last 25 years. So much of the satire Trey Parker and Matt Stone were delivering back in '99 is just as relevant today, if not more so.
This is a gleefully raunchy movie whose entire point is about how that it perfectly fine. A little crude humor never hurt anybody, right?
The Disc
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has never looked quite as good or sharp as it does on this new 4K release. The original South Park pilot episode was animated using actual paper cutouts and a stop-motion technique. After the show was picked up, Parker and Stone moved to a digital animation but kept the same style, drawing it to look like the paper characters and backdrops created for that first episode. With this 4K edition of the movie, that initial paper style is more noticeable than usual and incredibly vivid. Those cut-out textures really pop, and there's a great spike in the color for both the Dolby Vision and HDR 10.
The thing with South Park, though, is that a crystal clear picture doesn't do a whole lot to enhance the overall experience. The low budget aesthetic is part of the appeal. Sure, seeing textures in digital paper and cloth is pretty cool, but it doesn't change the film the way better resolution would for a live-action or 3D-animated movie. It just looks like South Park, but a little nicer, and South Park is something where "nice" isn't all that necessary.
The Features
Paramount's South Park 4K is another one of those good news/bad news situations when it comes to the special features. There are a couple solid features on this disc, but none of them are new.
The commentary with Parker and Stone is the highlight of the bunch. It's a blast and absolutely worth listening to. Seriously, you'll laugh about as hard as you do watching the normal movie just listening to those two talk about it. There's also a music video and a sing-a-long included on the disc. The biggest issue is that these features were on the previous Blu-ray release. If you own that already, you won't find anything new here.
The Verdict
This 4K is the best version of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut on the market, and it isn't a very expensive release. It's absolutely worth owning, especially if you don't already have a copy of the Blu-ray. If you do have the previous Blu-ray release, however, the difference may not be worth the cost of upgrading.
The South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut 25th Anniversary 4K is available now. A copy was provided for the purpose of this review.
