Dude, Where's My Car
Catch it on HBO
At the behest of a friend I obtained the DVD of this film for screening purposes, and sat with a fairly open-minded companion to watch it. My previous experience with the film had been slipping into the theatre showing DWMC while awaiting the beginning of some other film I was intending to sneak into. I came in at the final 10 minutes, which is, admittedly, unfair to any film, and was confronted with a haphazard and alarming panoply of weird people and disjointed plot points - some teen-sex-comedy boob gags, some sci-fi wackiness, and of course, two hapless idiots in the middle of it all, saving the day. Oops, did I give it away?
While in one sense, Dude could only have been made today, in the slacker-romanticizing late 20th-early 21st century, it is actually a very "old-school" comedy because of one key element: attitude. Latter-day dinks tend to be more mean-spirited or abusive to each other, or to others (based on the Laurel and Hardy model). The old-school buddy comedy that survived, and upon which Dude is modeled, is more the happy-go-lucky fool, who never wavers in his trust or optimism or enthusiasm despite terrible obstacles or others' bad attitudes. Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, Steve Martin's The Jerk, and others follow this model.
Do not get too excited: I am not comparing Ashton Kutcher or Seann William "Stifler" Scott to Danny Kaye by any stretch of the imagination. However, the reason the sweet-natured fool survives is because of his unflagging cheeriness in the face of disaster, which makes for great comedic set up for further disaster. And I have to admit that Dude, Where's My Car succeeds in keeping these sub-literate goobers likable despite their painful incompetence as human beings. And they really are quite likable. These failed pizza-delivery boys who awaken after what is apparently the most amazing night of partying in their lives ultimately find that their altered-state shenanigans have put the fate of the universe in peril, not to mention upset their girlfriends and relocated their car.
In the meantime, they embark upon amusing and mildly amusing and not-so amusing mini adventures to rectify what appears to be the disaster of the moment, unwittingly discovering new disaster around every corner while doing nothing to fix the original problem, until it spirals out of control. I am a big fan of the snowball effect in comedy, and scenes contain mini-snowballing peril I did enjoy, but the greater plot line was too zig zaggy to maintain the tension throughout the film. As a result, the well-executed physical humor had to carry me through until the tension could be regained. In other words, I chuckled genuinely at parts, but by the end, knowing it was the end, I was unable to muster up the required delight at the surreal conflagration (as previously feloniously witnessed). My companion got a little less out of it.
As a work held up against Oscar Wilde and vintage Mel Brooks, this comedy is passing but not excelling. In its own genre, the idiot-buddy comedy, it does not compare to the Citizen Kane of idiot-buddy comedies, Dumb and Dumber, but it does deliver on most of what it promises. Catch it on HBO. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2002 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. reviews@cinerina.com Check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/ - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource http://www.mediamotions.com and http://www.capitol-city.com
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