Review of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) by Andrew N — 17 Aug 2010

While not his best, Mike Judge's film debut is still an awesome ride, and a quite entertaining and hilarious one at that. It was awesome to see MTV's infamous moron duo on the big screen, and the movie certainly doesn't disappoint. That some critics actually "got" it, and gave it good marks makes me happy, and it shows that the program and the movie weren't devoid of substance or wit that could be appreciated by a wide audience.

From the Isaac Hayes tuned-blaxploitation tribute opening credits to the final shot which salutes classic westerns and samurai films, this movie looks great, and earns all the nods it makes. The story is relatively simple, and so is the solution, but that's not the point. The Duo's precious TV gets stolen, but the destonation doesn't matter compared to the journey. Their cross country trip happens more or less out of ridiculous circumstance and miscommunication, but that's all part of the character development, and the sly satire of American culture and it's youth that Mike Judge does such a good job of bringing to life. King of the Hill was much better as this kind of witty and intellgient stuff, but this definitely laid the ground work, and made his later brilliant stuff (especially Office Space) possible.

The normal vocie cast are excellent as usual, and the famous celebrity voices joining them are both awesome and give good performances as well. The soundtrack isn't quite excellent, but it sure comes close. Because of this damn movie, I am unable to not enjoy "Lesbian Seagull", even if Englebert Humperdink is an artist I don't really care (much) for.

I think this is just as awesome and hilarious now as I thought it was back when it first came out. I'm surprised how well it holds up. I hope it stays that way for a long time to come. I'm torn on a specific rating, so let's just say B+ to (very slight, as in almost but not quite) A-.