by Mike Hilty, Contributing Writer
Growing up, I had a single mom working her tail off for my sister and I. We had to grow up pretty fast, and there were some rules we had to follow. When we were younger, before we could play with friends, play with video games, or watch TV, we had to do our chores and finish our homework. Those are pretty standard rules to abide by. When I did get a chance to play video games, I could only play games that weren’t really violent (until Mortal Kombat literally blew up that rule) and I could only play for an hour at a time. We could only play with friends in the neighborhood at a local park or at our house. If we had to ride our bikes or walk, we weren’t allowed to cross the street without holding hands with an adult. The TV was something that had some flexibility, but my mom had a handful of shows that we weren’t allowed to watch. At the top of this list for some strange reason was Beavis and Butt-Head.
Here we are, 26 years after Beavis and Butt-Head Do America hit theaters with a long awaited and under-the-radar sequel that fans have been clamoring for.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, created by, written by, directed by, and starring Swiss army knife Mike Judge, has the dynamic duo being assigned to space jam as punishment for ruining their school’s science fair. Once there, the duo are selected for a special mission to observe a blackhole. They screw up so badly that they are sucked into the black hole and transported through time to 2022 (they were originally in 1998). Beavis and Butt-Head have to figure out how to live in 2022 and accomplish their goal they set out to accomplish from the beginning: to score. Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe is currently streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
My background with Beavis and Butt-Head, even though my mom banned me from watching it, is pretty decent. I watched a lot of the episodes and I snuck out to watch the movie with some friends. I love their brand of humor. I actually talked about this recently with fellow SiftPop writer Shane Conto, about wanting another Beavis and Butt-Head movie and having them be semi-fishes out of water, adapting to what teenagers are doing in the 21st century. How funny would it have been for Beavis and Butt-Head to be on TikTok? Or what they’d have to say about the current state of politics?
This movie had almost everything I was looking for with these two.
This has to be one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen in my life, but I loved every minute of it. Let’s start with the story. The inciting incident is flawed at best; these two would be sentenced to a space camp by an actual judge as punishment for burning down the gym during a science fair. Only Beavis and Butt-Head could get away making a science experiment out of kicking each other in the nuts. They are then selected to be part of a space mission because the astronauts see them performing the same task for 18 hours, and they see this as a form of dedication. The space mission descends into chaos, as it should, only for them to be sucked into a black hole. I checked out of the story pretty quickly and turned my brain off at the first mention of the black hole, because trying to make sense of anything going on would be almost impossible.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe is wildly funny and does its best work when they are experiencing life in 2022. There were three elements of 2022 that were by far the funniest things about this movie. In ascending order, the third funniest element of 2022 that Beavis and Butt-Head experience is smartphones and mobile payments. They stumble into a situation where they have to take a picture of a family and they end up getting to experience what it’s like to have a smartphone and a way to pay for anything with a phone. What they choose to buy is hilarious. The second element is smart assistants like Siri. Beavis has a long conversation about life and his relationship with Butt-Head with Siri. She sometimes asks him tough questions and that really makes him think. But by far the funniest part of 2022 that they encounter is when they talk about white privilege. They stumble upon a class where they talk about white privilege and hilarity ensues. It might be one of the funniest moments I’ve seen this year so far. It’s worth experiencing the movie just for that moment.
There are only two real hang-ups I have with this movie. The first is, anything involving any other characters really takes away from seeing more Beavis and Butt-Head together. It’s a perfectly fine B plot, but the more we take away from the two main characters, the less funny it is. The only other hang-up is the lack of music that I’m accustomed to hearing from a Beavis and Butt-Head production. I would have wanted to hear what the current state of music was in 2022, from singing competition shows, to YouTube, to what MTV has become today. Sure there’s some music in it, but not enough, like when they watched music videos on their couch.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe will keep you entertained for its shocking 87 minute runtime. If you’re looking for something groundbreaking or truly different, this isn’t it. It amps up the shenanigans to the highest level while offering stakes that literally involve the universe. This had almost everything I was looking for, sans the music. All the usual jokes and catchphrases are here, and Judge is at his top level from a comedy standpoint. Is this something that you should subscribe to Paramount+ in order to watch? Probably not. The entire series isn’t even available on the service yet. For fans of the show, this will be right up your alley. For someone new to the Beavis and Butt-Head, this will probably not be for you. I enjoyed my time with this, but again, don’t think about the plot too much or else you may get a headache.
Score: 7/10
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