Directed by John Rice Albert Calleros
Voices by Mike Judge, Andrea Savage, Gary Cole
Beavis and Butt-head are back! The dumbass duo that were so popular throughout the ’90s (as well as in the first movie, Beavis and Butt-head Do America) have returned for their second movie, which really proves that the two young horny teenage boys haven’t learned much or evolved over all this time.
Back in 1998, whilst on a school excursion to a space centre, the dumb duo unwittingly impress Captain Serena Ryan, who invites them on an outer-space voyage to complete a docking sequence – though the two boys take this as an offer to ‘score.’ Obviously, the space adventure doesn’t go well, and an incensed Captain Ryan kicks them off her shuttle, only for them to end up in a wormhole that takes them back to Texas, though in the year 2022. So they continue to try and find Captain Ryan (now a politician in the running), and she has to find a way to get rid of them (again).
It’s certainly a contrivance the way the film has these characters get brought into our current year, though it’s worth it so that we don’t remain stuck in 1998, and so we have them at the same age, just in a new time. Besides, these contrivances don’t bother these main characters, who are less interested in the time travelling (and the alternative universe versions of them that show up) and more in their quest to ‘score.’
It could be criticised that the film is so damn similar to the first one: Beavis and Butt-head are coerced into a large scale event by a number of cunning men and women (who are or aren’t aware of their stupidity) all the while thinking that they’re actually going to score, until Beavis has a breakdown towards the end about never getting to ‘score.’
But Beavis and Butt-head is simply above this criticism. The show, and these two movies, work differently because there truly is never any development with these two characters. It’s great to see this specific kind of humour retains so well in 2022 than it did throughout the ‘90s, and it’s better to see what this franchise has kept the same, rather than tried (and failed) to change.
The film seems a little confused, or at least the title is. They don’t spend too much time across the universe, with them residing in space during the first half, and in modern day Texas during the second half. It isn’t exactly the Rick & Morty-inspired sci-fi fantasy film that the title suggests, and it’s much better for it. Beavis and Butt-head (the show and characters) have always been a ridiculously grounded show, focusing intently on the small and minute aspects of life, and despite the largeness of what’s going on in this film, they continue to focus on these things.
DAVID MORGAN-BROWN
