Classic Movie Review: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

I was always a bigger fan of Beavis and Butt-Head's spin-off series Daria than the show this movie was based on. That is until I saw the movie that Mike Judge put them in when I was a teenager. Now I know what you're thinking, that this is a movie only teenagers will like, but that's not so. After revisiting it for the twentieth anniversary of it's release, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is just as funny as it was then and it's still funny now that I am an adult.

Beavis and Butt-Head (Mike Judge) wake up one afternoon to find that their TV has been stolen. After looking around town for it, or a new one, they stumble across Muddy (Bruce Willis), a drunken thief who mistakes them for hitmen sent by an associate. Muddy wants them to travel to Las Vegas to murder his wife and retrieve a package from her. But the horny teenagers get confused and think he wants them to have sex with her instead. When they get there, however, Dallas (Demi Moore) decides to use them to her own end and have them transport a biological weapon to Washington DC. Of course this is unknown to the two boys and they are oblivious to the fact that ATF Agent Flemming (Robert Stack) has placed them on a most wanted list.

I'll admit that the jokes may seem juvenile, but they are still pretty funny. Agent Flemming's obsession with cavity searches for anyone and everyone regardless of their innocence ("Don't stop till you reach the back of their teeth") is hilarious. Especially since each order is given with the utmost seriousness. Beavis' poor reaction to sugar resulting in him turning into The Great Cornholio still works every time, despite the inherent silliness of the gag. And of course, who cannot like the pseudo-music video of The Red Hot Chili Peppers being turned into Las Vegas lounge singers doing their version of 'Love Rollercoaster'.

The main attraction of this movie for me is the amount of celebrity voices that the movie contains. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore do a fantastic job as the backstabbing husband and wife thief duo and Cloris Leachman) is hilarious as the old lady who thinks that Beavis and Butt-Head are just the sweetest things she has ever met. Greg Kinnear is fantastic as Flemming's offsider Agent Bork who is always to please his boss with the correct grammar. Cameos from Boyhood director Richard Linklater as a tour bus driver and David Letterman as Butt-Head's dad are small but perfect.

Right from the outset you know this movie is going to be different from other stoner comedies. Whether it's the two main characters destroying a city in their dreams or the opening titles being a homage to 70s cop shows, you never know what this one is going to throw at you, but whatever it is, you know you'll have a good time.

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Please don't watch this movie. Don't see it at the cinema, don't buy the DVD, don't even download it, it's not worth the bandwidth. My friend who was with me at the time, walked out twenty minutes in and I would've have well if I didn't have to review it. I feel as though my IQ has halved. And I wanted to give this movie a chance.

Now I've got that out of my system, let me tell you about it. The plot begins with a filmmaker (Dennis Quaid) pitching a movie to a studio exec (Greg Kinnear). Okay, of to a good start, no problem there, that is until we get to the first short about Kate Winslet going on a blind date with Hugh Jackman. In a regular movie that would be a great set up for a romantic comedy until it all goes south when we find out that Hugh Jackman has balls hanging from his chin, fully grown male testicles. What am I ten, who would find this funny. It obviously doesn't appeal to Greg Kinnear's character either because he immediately wants to put an end to the meeting.

But still Dennis Quaid goes on with his pitch, with stories ranging from an extremely dirty mouthed Emma Stone (who is going to have to work extremely hard to regain my love) sucking on Kieran Culkin's (Macaulay's brother) finger to a sketch about a product called iBabe (a naked female that functions like an iPod) made by a company headed by Richard Gere. Other sketches include Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts telling their new neighbours about the disgusting ways that homeschool their son (some of which are borderline incestuous). I am sure their son will grow up to be a mass murderer. Another short involved young Chloe Grace-Moretz getting her first period, with all the men in the house freaking out.

One storyline I did like (I use that term insanely loosely) was called Gotham City Speed Dating. In this short, Robin (Justin Long) is at a speed dating night, only to be humiliated by Batman (Jason Sudeikis), who shows up because a bomb has been planted at the venue by the Penguin. Kristen Bell is Supergirl and Uma Thurman is Lois Lane. Superman is portrayed as some kind of perverted sex fiend. The only reason I "liked"this segment is because Jason Sudeikis played Batman similar to his character Schmitty from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and that's only because his character in that is a dick.

As the film progresses, we find out that Dennis Quaid isn't some big director, but instead some crazy guy who has wandered in of the street with the hopes of getting his film made. But then in an insane twist, at the end we find out that the camera that was filming this was just a behind the scenes camera all along.

I don't know what the makers of this film were thinking, the same thing with the actors. Was Peter Farrelly trying to make some bold statement about the future of film? I don't think so. Were the actors, keep in mind that these are Oscar and Golden Globe worthy actors, just doing this movie as a bit of fun? Maybe, we'll never know. Two particularly offensive performances come from Stephen Merchant (Ricky Gervais best mate) who ends up with plastic surgery that has turned him Asian a la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Terrance Howard (as in Terrance Howard from Crash, a Best Picture winner) plays a coach of an all black basketball team in 1959, who convinces his team that they can win purely because they are black. Come on, that's more racist than the whole of Django Unchained.

Verdict: It's unfunny, racist, disgusting and just plain horrible. Avoid at all costs. Go see any other movie.