Move over, Dirty Dozen! At ease, Inglorious Basterds! The members of the undefeatable squad called by its foes the "monstrous regiment" are a team of literally monstrous misfits: Carborundum, the phlegmatic troll; Igor, the hunchbacked field surgeon; Wazzer, the sky-pilot mystic; Maladict, the recovering-addict vampire; Tonker and Lofty, the orphanage runaways; and Ozzie, the former bartender. Their superiors in the Borogravian army are the weaselly Col. Strappi, the wise Sgt. Jackrum and the effete Lt. Blouse. All of them have personal reasons for enlisting that will be revealed only in the heat of battle. Those familiar with the literary career of Terry Pratchett (who commands his own yearly international conference in the UK) know to expect sly social commentary in the guise of a mock-epic fantasy structured with the slapdash glee of a Dungeons and Dragons tournament. For those encountering the exhaustive Discworld series for the first time (like me), Chris Hainsworth's adaptation deftly avoids becoming bogged down in arcane backstories from previous volumes to locate us firmly in the present, the Balkanesque conflicts providing a canvas for discussion of war's eternal stupidity. This is no windy allegorical polemic, however. Under Kevin Theis's direction, this motley band of, uh, brothers emerges as a gang of live-action cartoons, with smart, slapstick antics always grounded in individual personalities. (Caffeine withdrawal represents a serious threat when coffee is a bloodjunkie's methadone, for example, and the old socks-down-the-trousers approach to she-male drag gets funnier when an entire platoon... on the other hand, I'm not gonna spoil THAT surprise). The wordplay likewise brims with the delight of an author who obviously loves his language, replete with puns and allusions inserted so unobtrusively as to register without stopping the flow of the action, as well as a dry humor ("I've starved before," Sgt. Jackrum warns his troops, "There's no future in it") refreshingly devoid of the juvenile snark too often infecting sword-and-sorcery satire. The swift physical pace would mean nothing without verbal agility as well, but Lifeline's dream-team ensemble never misses a step, despite costumes that include a prosthetic hump for Igor and full-body granite-camo armor for Carborundum ("You can't get blood from a stone") and special effects encompassing spectral visions, crossbow fire and big bangs just when you need them. The results are two and a half hours of giddy—and surprisingly wholesome—fun, even if, as the sergeant observes, "A regiment never met an entendre it couldn't double."
