Donlee_Brussel's Full Review: Dude, Where's My Car?
Slackers, stoners, dudes… We know them, we envy them, and we live through them by way of their wacky adventures documented on film. Whether they’re written by Kevin Smith (The New Jersey Trilogy), Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Suburbia), or the pioneer potheads of the cinematic universe, Cheech and Chong (Up In Smoke), the people of the world love to have a soft spot, a place in their hearts, for these lovable losers. Even the recent weed-smoker tales of Smokey and Craig in Friday and the heros of Half Baked have rightfully so been inaugurated into the stoner comedy genre as cult classics because the antics of these cannabis lovers were so endlessly entertaining. All of this brings us to the Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott buddy movie written and directed by sitcom hacks Philip Stark and Danny Leiner respectively. Dude, Where's My Car? represents the comedy genre itself at its worse, seeming like nothing more than a lame semblance of all of the above aforementioned films.
Meet Jesse and Chester, last night they got wasted out of their minds and can’t remember a thing about what they did the night before. More importantly though dude, they can’t find Jesse’s car. Now if this were just any old car with nothing in it, they would let by bygones be bygones. However, woe is they, inside the car are the anniversary gifts for their girlfriends, The Twins: Wanda (Jennifer Garner) and Wilma (Marla Sokoloff). So their search for the car begins, and along the way, hilarity ensues. Or to please Ron Wells of Film Threat haters, "I can just see the beads of sweat on the forehead of the young producer that spent all evening on a coke binge instead of brainstorming an original plot, as his mouth spews cinematic s--t (digested from anything that ever made money) onto the studio executive's desk who is eating it up with dollar bills folded into the shape of spoons."
Now Road Trip wasn’t the best teen film of the year. In fact, I thought it was complete and utter garbage, and panned it accordingly. For doing so, I refused this castigation:
"Hey Loser,
You must have no sense of humer in fact when is the last time you even laughed. See this movie again and then email me back with what you thought of it. Oh yeah watch it froma teens point of view, because this movie is aimed towards teens not for some up tight press guy who has had one too many dicks up his a--. One final thing “take my advice pull down your pants and slide on the ice” in other words chill out man have some fun."
Now I’m not some middle-aged, completely out of his element, holier than though film critic who only finds Frasier funny and thinks the only good movies are period pieces. I don’t make stupid comments like James Berardinelli in his review of Loser claiming, "Amy Heckerling, a woman who, at age 45, still has her hand on the pulse of men and women less than half her age."
I like stupid, lowbrow comedies as much as the next man as long as I find them clever, original, and/or creative. To me, the funniest movies of this year are Scary Movie, The Grinch, Little Nicky, and Battlefield Earth. I simply didn’t find Road Trip to be laugh my a-- off hilarious because Tom Green mouthing a live mouse isn’t funny to me. What I can say is that at the very least, Road Trip boasts the most T&A of any theatrical release I’ve seen this year, and while they may not be the best bare breasts of the year (Katie Holmes’ in The Gift are still upcoming), they were pleasant nonetheless. In addition, I found Seann William Scott’s reprisal of his the chauvinistic male pig character from American Pie in Road Trip to be entertaining as well and probably would’ve enjoyed seeing him do it again in Dude, Where’s My Car?, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
This PG-13 release is a gross out, teensploitation film at its heart missing the gross out comedy and teensploitation. It’s worse than Road Trip in every possible way. Dude, Where’s My Car? is nothing more than an extended version of the trailers we’ve all had forced onto us over the last two weeks. Thought a blind person flipping the bird was funny in the Tom Green movie? You’ll pass a kidney stone laughing at a blind kid feeling up a "hot chick" from another planet. The PG-13 rating looms over this movie like all the others I’ve b----ed about that should’ve been rated R this year (Loser, Coyote Ugly, Bring It On, Pay It Forward).
Jesse and Chester go to a strip club where no one’s naked. The closest thing we have to female nudity in Dude, Where’s My Car? is girls wearing wet white T-shirts. But if you’re interested in seeing Donkeylips (Michael Bower from Salute Your Shorts) completely naked save for some white underwear, this is your movie. If you’re into seeing a transsexual stripper showing his "package" to another guy, this is your movie. And, I’m not some devout Christian or anything, but call me crazy, I think a prepubescent boy and his father looking up a 50-foot-bimbo’s dress is wrong and unfunny. Nor do I find Andy Dick amusing at all, not even as a French man’s prisoner/b---h.
When the movie’s not busy ripping off its predecessors with a pot-smoking dog, offending my people with its racist to Chinese jokes, or killing my brain cells with its predictable potty humor, once every act or so, it might have something funny, like a one-upmanship battle between the two with Fabio and his girlfriend. But there are only three such moments in the film. Save your cash, because dude, this movie like totally sucks.
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