Airheads

Name: Airheads
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Music
Released: August 5, 1994
Duration: 92 min
Rating: 46
Cast: Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi

1994

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critics

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Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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4.5

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4.5	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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Airheads

Movie Details & Credits

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: August 5, 1994

Starring: Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi

Summary: A struggling rock band breaks into a radio station and holds everyone hostage with water pistols in order to get some 'airplay'. Then things get really strange.

Director: Michael Lehmann

Genre(s): Comedy, Crime, Music

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 92 min

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Awards & Rankings

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

Miami Herald - Rene Rodriguez

It's the smartest stupid movie of the summer. [5 Aug 1994, p.G5]

San Francisco Chronicle - Mick LaSalle

Although the picture's title and promotion might lead you to expect another "Wayne's World," Airheads is something more substantial. It's a spoof of heavy-metal culture that at the same time respects the vitality and pent-up passion behind it. Read full review

Chicago Tribune - Michael Wilmington

Airheads loses its guts and spark halfway through. Read full review

Variety - Leonard Klady

Though it’s little more than a one-joke premise, director Michael Lehmann gets maximum mileage from the low-octane script by Rich Wilkes. Wisely, there’s minimal interest accorded the narrative, with emphasis on the off-kilter characters and their social milieu. Read full review

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

The idea has anarchic possibilities, but the film itself is awfully tame. Read full review

Tampa Bay Times - Steve Persall

Airheads is a rock 'n' roll radio comedy in which laughs come at a very low frequency. [5 Aug 1994, p.8]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) - Geoff Pevere

Airheads is a movie so direly muddled it actually manages - no mean feat this - to seem more stupid than the rock biz idiocy it aims to satirize. [5 Aug 1994]

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User Reviews

harvdog03

Nov 1, 2018

Not all that funny. Some joke hit while most didn't. It just wasn't that memorable.

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mattkerr494

Apr 22, 2018

It sucks entering your mid-late 20s. The novelty of your youth is wearing off and its likely that everybody is getting fed up of your ****
You know what sucks more? Entering your mid-late 20s when you have a creative mindset mixed with artistic ambitions. Most likely your artistic projectIt sucks entering your mid-late 20s. The novelty of your youth is wearing off and its likely that everybody is getting fed up of your ****
You know what sucks more? Entering your mid-late 20s when you have a creative mindset mixed with artistic ambitions. Most likely your artistic project isn’t getting anywhere – not because you suck, or anything, but because, like, the man has it in for you and if people would just give you a chance they would see how great your work is – and its looking increasingly likely that you are going to have to give up your artistic dream and fall back on your backup plan, choosing a boring job in a suit to risk not working your current **** job that you only have to pay the bills.
You know what sucks even more than that? If this creative mindset is expressed in the form of rebellion, non-conformity, and rock-n-roll, meaning not only do you have to think about a backup, but that even HAVING a backup plan and conforming is in direct conflict with your entire identity, meaning that you either have to keep being a massive douchebag getting nowhere to keep it real or to submit and loose your soul working a 9-5 and loose touch with ever being able to live out your dream.
What sucks EVEN MORE is if all this is happening in 1994; rock and roll had taken a nosedive in the mainstream thanks to the wave of new music that was blasted into the mainstream in a reaction set in motion by the opening chords of smells like teen spirit from Kurt Cobains amplifier; not only this, the rock that remained was well beyond a parody of itself at this point, and the rock that had dominated from the collapse of the 60s right up to the fall of the Berlin wall would only get more and more nitche as a fandom to the point of embarrassment. Its this desperation in the characters and setting that makes me almost sympathise with the stupidly tragic mission of the main characters, who set the plot in motion by getting themselves into a huge amount of **** for 3 measly minutes of airtime on the local rock radio. I almost want to love this move for it. Unfortunately I can’t bring myself to think of this film as anything more than average. If your movie is set almost exclusively in the butt-ugly interior of a cheap radio station, you’re going to have to sell me on the comedy. Some of the jokes here are decent - some of my favourite moments in the film are the great cameos that while short still manage to be unexpected and bring a laugh, particularly when God himself makes an appearance [RIP]). However much of the humour also falls into the just meh, if not full-on groanworthy field. In a comedy that the escalation of the situation is key to the comedy, they don’t really sell it enough – a large reason being that the characters spend too much of the film enjoying themselves, instead of comedy being generated from their suffering as they dig deeper into their own hole (which would have worked better not only comedically but also from a narrative standpoint. Also, I’m just a bit of a sadistic bastard). And don’t think that pulling Michael Richards from the set of Seinfeld and getting him to essentially play a Kramer-clone on screen through the film is going to sell me, either! Overall I’d say that if you have ever spent any of your adult years in a band – particularly a rock or metal group, and the worse you are/were the better – then you will probably find something to enjoy about this film. Audiences who aren’t fans of rock music and/or weed though might have a more tough time getting into it.

Watched April 15th 2018… Expand

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Meth-dude

Apr 24, 2018

Despite it's silly, but interesting story and it's all star cast, Airheads doesn't deliver in the fun and comedic department. The acting was sub-par, none of the jokes were funny and the movie was quite boring. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone even if you're a fan of the cast.

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