A lot of articles or talking points nowadays love to bring up the concept of how something "couldn't be made today." That modern sensibilities would outright reject the product for its dated mentality. So that's what makes Beavis and Butt-Head perhaps one of the most interesting franchises ever in that it's the anomaly. It's a franchise that, despite two decades-long hiatuses, continues to be the one franchise that surprisingly still holds up well. The 2011 series was a solid return to Mike Judge's seminal series, but was shor-lived on account of MTV and not so much the show itself. And since that cancellation, Judge has constantly tried to bring Beavis and Butt-Head back. It took until deep into the streaming age and the formation of Paramount+ to get there, but Beavis and Butt-Head are back. Both as a new series and a new movie that started that very comeback, 2022's Beavis and Butt-Head do the Universe.
Going into this blog, I guess I should start by saying that Beavis and Butt-Head is one of my favorite shows ever. Mainly on account of just how brilliantly dumb it is. Two moronic teenagers who constantly want to score but are so inept that they don't know what scoring actually is. Both their inability to score, not to mention the destruction in their wake due to just how dumb they are, makes for some brilliant comedy. Being, in its own way, a commentary on the youth of the 90s. The generation billed as the leaders of tomorrow, but ultimately are just a bunch of dumb teenagers. The original movie, 1996's Beavis and Butt-Head do America, proved that the characters' crude humor can work in a feature length film without music videos to critique. Because the duo are characters who can be placed in almost any scenario and their stupidity, libido and love of sexual jokes can carry the film. And that's very much the case with the 2022 sequel.
The plot sees Beavis and Butt-Head end up going to space camp after destroying the science fair, and, through the inability of the captain Serena Ryan to see that the boys docking a telescope as them being immature morons, end up in outer space, which leads to them entering a black hole and being sucked through time 24 years into the future to the year of 2022. And thus the plot builds itself with Beavis and Butt-Head trying to find Serena to score with her, while Serena believes that their survival could jeopardize her political career. Also the feds are after them, there's another Beavis and Butt-Head from a multiverse, stuff about a portal. All stuff that in any other movie would be pivotal to the progression of the plot, but is just the window dressing to give us Beavis and Butt-Head shenanigans in the modern era. Which the movie does a little bit, mainly when they steal a phone and Beavis mistakes Siri for Serena, opening his feelings up for the first time, but aside from the brilliant "white privilege" bit, the movie smartly keeps from just being a fish out of water scenario. No real time for that when the boys have to try and score.
Also, bringing up the white privilege bit, I see people using it as an excuse to call the movie "unwoke", like Beavis and Butt-Head of all franchises is somehow a dig at the "snowflakes" or whatever word of the week is that people are hung up on. Which really just goes to show that the whole "woke" boogeyman jumped the shark ages ago. The bit is funny because it's exactly what these two idiots think white privilege is. That they're so dumb that they don't even know what white privilege even is other than that they think it means they have cart blanche to just go around doing what they already do. I really don't want this to be my blog's sticking point, talking about lame ass "culture wars", but I figured at least here, it's warranted. Like I've said a bunch already and will a bit more, Beavis and Butt-Head is an anomaly franchise because it's so dumb that it somehow transforms into pure genius. The moronic caterpillar that transforms into the somehow even dumber, yet beautiful butterfly.
And thus the movie mostly plays out more like a series of skits that interconnect with one another in the ultimate narrative. Some more important like the entire space opening. Some, like the college scene and the boys in jail, feel more like scrapped episode plots added into the movie rather than important to the movie as a whole, but still work in being entertaining. Granted, the original also did much of the same, only the plot felt a bit more connected and every stop Beavis and Butt-Head took along the way connected far better. Hell, the whole FBI stuff was done better the previous film. That one had the cavity search bit. I'll also say that while the time travel concept is cool and all, given we never see any characters in this new future, nor does much of the world feel that different, the time travel gimmick itself is kind of lacking. You don't get an older Van Driessen or Stuart Daria. But given this is more on account of having to setting up the new series from this point, with Beavis and Butt-Head in 2022, it doesn't really hurt the movie overall. Does cause a continuity error with the 2011 show, but am I really going to take issues with the chronological history of the series somehow now in disarray? Nah.
In terms of animation, the movie looks fine. Probably the cleanest the series has ever looked. Coming a long way from the more crude looking animation of the early seasons. I'll say a bit too clean as I do miss the more rough look of the series, even in its 2011 run. But it was never anything that took any enjoyment away either. Again, like when I watched Snow White, maybe it's more me being used to movies in the lower quality of the likes of VHS that keeps my brain from being as wowed by the style in higher definition. I'll get used to it over time I'm sure. Voice acting is also solid, though that modern Beavis voice is rough. I think about how Julie Kavner's voice sounds now on The Simpsons and can understand that this is the curse to befall those who use gravelly, higher pitched voices for their characters. Like tiny daggers that stab at the voice box, especially the older one gets. So the fact Judge can get enough of a workable Beavis voice at all is impressive.
I've also been watching some of the new series as well and I enjoy it. Where the movie wasn't as able to cover more modern ideas, the show is now able to, even going so far as to switch their commentary up from music videos to also featuring popular viral videos. Be it ASMR or BTS, this stuff never gets old. At least to me. But then again, I thrive on crude humor. It's the spinach to my Popeye. It also continues to make my point about how the franchise is this strange anomaly. That yes, the characters sex-crazed escapades have not aged THAT well, they still work because at the end of the day, Beavis and Butt-Head are morons. Physically incapable of doing anything. More a threat to themselves than any woman they take their fancy on. Like Johnny Bravo but somehow, through some strange force of nature, more inept than even Johnny Bravo.
Overall, I liked Beavis and Butt-Head do the Universe. Not as much as Do America, but it's still a solid enough start to a new era for the franchise. While the plot does feel far thinner than the first movie and the comedy hilarious but perhaps not as sharp, everything in it still works as perfectly as Beavis and Butt-Head should, showing that the general concept still works better than most would even think. Time passes forward, the world changes, but so long as the Beavis and Butt-Head (of this universe) still can't score, then all truly is right in the world. While we still have a series underway, I wonder if we'll see another movie ever again. Though once you've done the universe, I can't really see how you top that. But given the characters of this franchise, they'll find a way.
RATING: ***1/2
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