Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022)
★★★ — Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022)
Look, nobody sat down to watch Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe expecting Kubrick. And that's fine. That's the deal. You know exactly what you're getting the moment those two appear on screen, still fixated on fire and heavy metal and absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever. The question isn't whether it's sophisticated. The question is whether it's funny. And the honest answer is: sometimes, yeah, it really is.
Mike Judge blasts his beloved idiots into space, then flings them forward in time to the present day, and the premise is just daft enough to work as a delivery mechanism for gags. There's something genuinely inspired about dropping two terminally dim teenagers who peaked intellectually somewhere around 1993 into a world of smartphones, social media, and identity politics. The joke practically writes itself, and to Judge's credit, he squeezes it well. A running bit involving smart phone assistants and the lads' almost supernatural ability to misread every situation around them gets more mileage than it probably should.
And the voices are still spot on. Judge slipping back into both characters feels effortless, and there are moments where the sheer committed stupidity of Beavis and Butt-Head tips over into something weirdly brilliant. That's always been the trick with these two. At a certain level of dumb, you come back around the other side and find something almost philosophical. Almost.
But I'd be lying if I said this hits the same heights as Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. That film had a manic energy and a genuine go-for-broke quality that made it feel like an event. This one is more comfortable. More settled. It coasts. The satire, when it comes, lands with less bite than you'd hope. The original series had a genuine edge to it, a willingness to be actually uncomfortable. Here, things feel sanded down slightly, the rough corners smoothed off for a streaming audience who probably just want the warm familiarity of the old characters rather than anything that challenges them.
The story meanders, too. There's not much in the way of real stakes or surprise, and the middle section drags in a way that a tighter edit might have fixed. It's a streaming film, and it carries some of the shapelessness that tends to come with that. Nobody was demanding this be a lean ninety minutes of precision comedy, but a bit more discipline wouldn't have gone amiss.
Here's the thing though: it's not trying to be anything other than what it is. It's Beavis and Butt-Head, doing stupid things, misunderstanding the world around them, occasionally stumbling into something that makes you laugh properly. If you grew up with them, there's genuine comfort in that. The callbacks are handled with affection rather than desperation, and the fact that the two of them have absolutely refused to grow or learn or change in any way is, in its own strange fashion, the whole point.
Three stars out of five. Harmless fun, occasionally hilarious, but mostly running on the fumes of nostalgia rather than anything new. If you miss them, welcome back. Just don't go in expecting the universe to be reinvented. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2025-09-14
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Paramount Plus · Paramount+ Amazon Channel · Paramount Plus Premium · Paramount Plus Basic with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Paramount Plus Premium · Paramount Plus Essential · Paramount+ Amazon Channel · Paramount+ Roku Premium Channel
Buy: Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube · Fandango At Home
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
Related on Movies With Macca
More with Mike Judge: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
