Dude, Where's My Car? Reviews

TV-trained Freaks and Geeks auteur Danny Leiner's feature debut is less a movie than a series of randomly connected scenes that happen to fall next to each other. If nothing else, it proves that every generation gets the Cheech and Chong it deserves. This time they're stoners Jesse (Ashton Kutcher, of TV's That '70s Show) and Chester (Seann William Scott), two dim bulbs who fall about halfway in the continuum between Bill & Ted and Wayne & Garth. The plot, if that's the word, is pretty much summed up in the title; the duo awake one morning and can't remember a thing about the previous night's activities, including where they parked their car, which is full of presents for their girlfriends. The rest of the film is a sort of pot-smoker's picaresque adventure, with Jesse and Chester lurching from one bizarro encounter to another, including run-ins with a cult of Trekkies, alien babes from outer space, and a flock of angry ostriches. The two stars are, to use their own word, sweet. And if you accept the film on its own brain-damaged level, there actually are laughs to be had, particularly if you find bubblewrap and the popping thereof, which figures prominently in several sight gags, intrinsically amusing.