Metacritic Film

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

Starring Mike Judge, Cloris Leachman, Robert Stack, Jacqueline Barba, Eric Bogosian, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, and Greg Kinnear

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for continuous crude sex-related humor and language, and for a drug-related scene

Paramount Pictures
Adventure  |  Animation  |  Comedy
81 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters December 20, 1996

Beavis and Butt-head hit the road in search of their stolen TV and get mistaken for hit-men hired to "do" a man's sexy wife (Moore). In the pursuit of their misunderstood task, the duo tour the country from Vegas, to the Grand Canyon, and finally to D.C. where Beavis' alter-ego Cornholio makes his last stand at the White House.

WRITTEN BY
Mike Judge (television series "Beavis and Butt-head")
Joe Stillman

DIRECTED BY
Mike Judge
Yvette Kaplan (animation)

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

64 / 100

Critic Reviews

80 Film Threat
Even the harshest critic has to recognize the sheer unbridled joy of their ignorance.
80 The New Yorker Bruce Diones
Their monumentally stupid and childish observations burst like water balloons over the heads of everyone they encounter; the movie plays like a dumbed-down "Animal House," and its idiocy is irresistible.
78 Austin Chronicle
A wellspring of lowbrow comedy that leaves you giggling in spite of yourself. Truly, it does not suck.
75 Chicago Sun-Times
Those who deplore Beavis and Butt-Head are confusing the messengers with the message.
70 The New York Times
Nastily amusing
70 Variety
Has some genuinely amusing moments of dumb and dumber silliness.
70 Los Angeles Times
Successfully brings to the big screen those no-brainer nerds who have brought laughter to living rooms around the world for nearly four years.
70 Washington Post
Takes the spirit of their late night TV show and flies with it.
70 Chicago Reader
A hallucination sequence and a scene set in a Vegas nightclub are so engrossing you forget they're animated; even the showiest techniques don't detract from the story.
67 Entertainment Weekly
Scene for scene, the duo are in good form. Yet this is one case where more turns out to be less.
63 ReelViews
Those who have learned to enjoy the duo on MTV (for whatever reason) will welcome this as a holiday treat. Everyone else will have a better time if they stay away.
60 TV Guide Staff (Not credited)
It's just as juvenile as you'd expect, and even funnier.
50 Christian Science Monitor
Admirers of their MTV series will find a few laughs in this animated odyssey. Others will find it as repetitious as it is vulgar.
50 Salon.com Gary Kamiya
There are some yucks in this ludicrous movie, but what was amusingly imbecilic at 20 inches becomes simply simian at 20 feet. To paraphrase SCTV's fishing louts, some things just don't blow up real good.
50 San Francisco Chronicle
Has some funny moments, and if you're a Beavis and Butt-head fan, you'll enjoy the movie.
50 The Onion (A.V. Club) John Krewson
Adds up to another prefab youth-culture event and a mediocre movie.

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