Reviews

Some bad ideas have the decency to be entertaining, while others simply keep driving until the credits roll. That distinction is crucial to enjoying *Dude, Where’s My Car?*, a scattershot comedy that occasionally stumbles into genuine absurdity but spends far too much time mistaking immature behavior for clever writing. The movie’s biggest asset is easily the chemistry between Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott. Given the material, they make a surprisingly effective pair, selling the blank-eyed confusion of two stoner buddies trying to piece together a night they cannot remember. Kutcher’s hairstyle, by the way, being spot on for 2000’s fashion. There are also flashes of inspired stupidity, particularly the wonderfully endless drive-thru exchange of “And then?” It is the kind of gag that should become unbearable almost immediately, yet finds a rhythm in the silliness. Unfortunately, those moments are sparse in an otherwise barren comedic landscape. The story is not merely stupid in the amusing, anything-goes sense; it is often just stupid. The jokes are predictable, painfully juvenile, and rarely clever enough to justify how hard they lean into the material. Even the facial expressions are pushed so far into exaggerated territory that some scenes feel less like performances than auditions for a live-action cartoon. The supporting cast does little to help. Much of the acting is remarkably stiff, which becomes especially noticeable when the leads are already working with deliberately ridiculous material. Some of the humor has also aged poorly; however, there is an odd historical curiosity to watching the film now. It is practically a time capsule of early-2000s “edgy” comedy, complete with the sensibilities and punchlines that seemed acceptable—or at least marketable—at the time. At least the movie knows how long it needs to overstay its welcome: barely. Its short runtime is arguably one of its virtues, because there is only so much of this particular brand of stupidity one can reasonably absorb. The fairest criticism is that The Film Critics are simply are not the target demographic. There is clearly a niche audience for this sort of aggressively immature comedy, and *Dude, Where’s My Car?* commits itself completely to that audience. For everyone else, the film is an uneven collection of dumb jokes, bizarre detours, and a handful of genuinely funny moments buried underneath an awful lot of noise. It is not entirely without charm, but finding that charm requires a fairly specific sense of humor—and a tolerance for juvenile movies.