Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000)
Though it pales in comparison in terms of quality, Dude, Where’s My Car? is like a stoner mash-up of The Hangover and Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It is its overall tone that makes it a guilty pleasure, though, as the broadness of its humour actually makes it seem like it is satirising the obvious sexism and ridiculousness of its own genre – intentionally or not.
Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott) wake up with a fridge full of chocolate pudding, and no recollection of the night before. They discover that Jesse’s car is missing, and with it, the one-year anniversary gifts that the two best friends purchased for their twin girlfriends, Wanda (Jennifer Garner) and Wilma (Marla Sokoloff). Having also discovered an angry message on their answerphone from said girlfriends, they begin a lengthy quest to recover the missing vehicle, and piece together their missing evening.
Over the course of their adventure, they encounter many larger-than-life characters, including two groups of aliens – one comprised of six women, and one comprised of two men. They learn that these groups are fighting over the recovery of a Continuum Transfunctioner, which is capable of universal destruction, and looks just like a Rubik’s Cube. Jesse and Chester accidentally picked it up the previous night, and have been playing with it all day. The challenge then becomes guessing which group of aliens should have the device, to save the universe.
Jesse and Chester are simple characters – driven only by the pursuit of their own pleasure and happiness – but they are required to rise to the occasion and take actions that ultimately save the universe. This kind of failure-turned-hero story is always satisfying and familiar. But it is the treatment of the female characters that puts the film into the guilty pleasure category – dealing with them as one-dimensional creations so blatantly that it crosses the line into parody. This is bolstered by the fact that the two young men are motivated throughout by what they perceive to be the promise of sex, but which ultimately turns out to be matching knitted hats – only to have the alien men provide anniversary gifts for the girlfriends in the form of breast-enhancing necklaces.