BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA
A film review by Laura & Robin Clifford
Copyright 1997 Laura & Robin Clifford
(This review is an excerpt from Reeling, a movie review show hosted by Laura and Robin Clifford, running on Boston Cable TV. Note that the film descriptions vary in completeness due to the fact that they're actually intros for running film clips.)
BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA -------------------------------
is MTV's second foray into feature films with their dynamic idiotic adolescent duo who we're used to seeing commenting on music videos. None of that here as the film begins with the theft of their beloved TV. As they search for a replacement, they're mistaken for the hitmen sent to 'do' somebody's wife in Las Vegas. Thinking that they're being paid to score for the first time with the buxom blonde, they excitedly take off only to end up as dupes in a plot to steal a germ-warfare device, become named the most dangerous men in America and wreck havoc with nuns and senior citizens across the U.S.A.
LAURA:
While I've only caught Beavis and Butt-head on MTV a few times and was barely just slightly amused, I must admit that "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" made me laugh (in fact, I'm still giggling)!
The animation for the feature length film is a cut above what's used on TV - in fact, it reminded me of Ralph Bashki's animation ("Fritz the Cat", "American Pop").
What's appealing about the film isn't stylistic tough - it's the dumber than a plug humor. Beavis and Butt-Head are intellectually stunted adolescents who look for sexual innuendo in everything that's said (i.e., translating 'entertain us' into "He said 'anus'." heh-heh-heh. Just imagine Butt-Head's delight when a commercial jetliner pilot tells him to 'get out of his cockpit'!
Beavis had me in stitches when, after consuming a vast and varied amount of pills from a senior citizen's handbag, he freaks, wears his t-shirt over his head and jammers "I am Cornholio - give me teepee for my bunghole." Silly? Vastly. Funny? Well, at least I though so...
Besides this idiocy we also get our two lads mistakenly thinking church confessional stalls are porto-potties (with hilarious results), an FBI agent (voiced by Robert Stack) with a penchant for full cavity searches and a couple of old-timers with a camper who never avoid crossing paths with their nemeses.
It should be noted that Beavis and Butt-Head are all about sex and drugs and rock and roll and, while there is no animated nudity or bad language used, they may not be suitable for small children.
"Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" is good dumb fun and a movie that definitely does not suck.
B
ROBIN:
"Beavis and Butt-head Do America" creator, Mike Judge, may not have aimed very high with the brand of humor used in this film, but he sure succeeds in hitting his comic target a very high percentage of the time.
The humor put forth in "B&BDA" consists almost entirely of body parts (mostly female), being naked (all female), sluts (the female kind), boobs (guess which gender), poop, anti-authority, and TV. You can see that this is not the kind of film intended to appeal to the art-house crowd.
BUT, if theres a side of you which appreciates extraordinarily low-brow humor, done successfully to excess some of the time, then "Beavis and Butt-head Do America" will attract you.
I have only seen a few minutes of the MTV series, but what I saw turned me off from seeing the movie. Biting the bullet, I went, I saw, I laughed.
The B&B characters are so clueless that Mike Judge is able to draw two completely different worlds - our normal world, and the one lived in by our duo. Judge parallels these worlds well, with collisions - all B&B instigated - of these worlds taking place all along the way.
Beavis and Butt-head, in their overwhelming desire to score, succeed in breaking the Hoover Dam, blacking out Las Vegas, causing a massive traffic accident on the Washington D.C. beltway, taking over the US Senate PA system, and forcing the Strategic Air Command to go to DEFCOM 4. All this in 80 minutes!
Technically, the animation is of surprisingly high quality - beyond B&B, that is. Mike Judge populates his story with a number of colorful characters, such as Dallas and Buddy (voiced by Demi Moore and Bruce Willis), a couple of gun-runners; a lunatic ATF agent (Robert Stack) who demands that everyone, victims included, be given a full body cavity search; and, a nice old couple, whose camper B&B commandeer from time to time for privacy when the urge to whack off comes upon them.
The repetitive nature of B&Bs low-grade humor works pretty well here, especially when Beavis gets jeeped up on caffeine stimulants and sugar, turning in to his alter ego, Cornholio. Judges pushed Cornholios hijinks far past the point of good taste, but still gets consistent laughs.
The music video numbers, from Isaac Hayes' rewriting the "Theme to Shaft" for our boys, to the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Love Rollercoaster", are a good melding of music and animation. Very entertaining.
"Beavis and Butt-head Do America" is a solid, comic film, filled with humor and wittiness at a gutter level rarely achieved in film.
No sequel, please, but, I still give "Beavis and Butt-head Do America" a B.
Visit Reeling at http://www.neponset.com/reeling.
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