Dude, Where's My Car?

2000 film by Danny Leiner

8 min read

Dude, Where's My Car? is a 2000 American stoner comedy film directed by Danny Leiner. The film stars Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott as two best friends who find themselves unable to remember where they parked their vehicle after a night of recklessness, ultimately uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the universe. Supporting cast members include Kristy Swanson, Jennifer Garner, Marla Sokoloff, and Mary Lynn Rajskub.

Though the film was panned by most critics, it was a box office success for 20th Century Fox and has managed to achieve a cult status. The film's title became a minor pop-culture saying, and was commonly reworked in various pop-cultural contexts during the 2000s.

Plot

Best friends and roommates Jesse Montgomery III and Chester Greenburg awaken with hangovers and no memory of the previous night. The answering machine contains an angry message from their twin girlfriends, Wilma and Wanda, as to their whereabouts. The two also learn that they have almost been fired from their pizza delivery jobs, and they discover that the cabinets in their kitchen are full of containers of pudding. They emerge from their home to find Jesse's car missing (leading to the titular question) and, with it, their girlfriends' first anniversary presents. Because the girls have promised them a "special treat", which Jesse and Chester take to mean sexual intercourse, the boys desperately begin retracing their steps in an attempt to discover where they left the car.

Along the way, they encounter a transgender stripper, a belligerent speaker box operator at a Chinese restaurant's drive-through, two tattoos they discover on each other's backs, UFO cultists led by Zoltan (who later hold the twins hostage), a Cantonese-speaking Chinese tailor, the Zen-minded Nelson and his cannabis-loving dog Jackal, beautiful Christie Boner, her aggressive jock boyfriend Tommy and his friends, two hard-nosed police detectives, and a reclusive French ostrich farmer named Pierre. They also encounter two groups of aliens: one group consists of five attractive women, and the other comprises two Norwegian men, all of whom are searching for the "Continuum Transfunctioner" —an extraterrestrial device that Jesse and Chester accidentally acquired the night before.

The search for both the car and the Transfunctioner leads Jesse and Chester to the local arcade and mini-golf course, Captain Stu's Space-O-Rama. Once inside, they encounter Zoltan and his cultists, who give them Wilma and Wanda in exchange for a toy that Jesse and Chester try to pass off as the Transfunctioner. Tommy, Christie, and the jocks arrive along with Nelson and his dog, whom they release after Tommy snatches the fake Transfunctioner from Zoltan. The two sets of aliens arrive and reveal that the toy is not the Transfunctioner; moments later, Chester finishes solving a Rubik's Cube, which shapeshifts into the real Continuum Transfunctioner.

The boys are warned that once the five lights on the device stop flashing, the universe will be destroyed. Jesse and Chester must determine which group of aliens is there to protect the universe and which is there to destroy it. Both claim to be the protectors of the universe, stating that they were with Jesse and Chester the previous night, which Jesse and Chester still cannot remember. The two correctly choose the Norwegian men after they successfully answer their question about the previous night by stating they got a hole-in-one at the 18th hole at the arcade's miniature golf park and won a lifetime supply of pudding. At the last second, they deactivate the Transfunctioner, saving the universe.

Enraged, the five alien women merge into a beautiful 50-foot giantess clad in a purple bra and matching miniskirt. She swallows Tommy whole in front of Christie (who reacts with indifference), and gives chase to Jesse and Chester. The cultists tell them to activate the Photon Accelerator Annihilation Beam on the Transfunctioner. However, the button that activates it is too far in to reach. Chester suddenly remembers a nature show from earlier in the day, with chimpanzees using sticks to gather food through small holes, and applies the same logic with a straw to push the recessed button, destroying the alien. Tommy survives, but Christie breaks up with him in favor of Nelson.

The protectors thank Jesse, Chester, and the twins for saving the world, and erase their memories of the adventure. The protectors park the duo's car, a Renault Le Car, behind a mail truck for them to find the following morning. Jesse and Chester salvage their relationships with the twins and discover that the special treat from the girls turns out to be matching berets with their names, Jesse's and Chester's, embroidered in the front. The protectors leave a gift for their girlfriends, and for them by extension: breast enhancement necklaces. Jesse, Chester, and the twins go out for Chinese food in Jesse's car while arguing about what their tattoos say.

Cast

Production

The film's title is derived from the line "Dude, where's your car" from The Big Lebowski. The film's screenplay was written by Philip Stark, who had previously written for That '70s Show (which featured Ashton Kutcher); Glenn Whitehead adding content to the script. That '70's Show aired on the Fox Network, which News Corporation owned along with the film's studio 20th Century Fox.

Seth Rogen and Jake Gyllenhaal both auditioned for the lead roles. Jason Reitman twice declined offers to direct the film.

Principal photography took place during 2000 in North Hollywood, Santa Clarita, and Glendale, California. Scenes containing the fictional restaurant "Chinese Foooood" were filmed in Burbank, California.

Release

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 16% of 62 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "The movie isn't funny, the plot is too thin, and the production values feel more like a TV sitcom than a movie." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 30 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

The BBC Films review gave it 1 star, calling the film "a lame-brained travesty" and "intensely irritating", and Kutcher and Scott's routines "painfully unamusing". USA Today said: "Any civilization that can produce a movie this stupid probably deserves to be hit by famine and pestilence." The Chicago Tribune said: "At the end of 83 unmerciful minutes, audiences will be exclaiming, 'Dude, I can't believe I sat through that movie!?'" and the New York Post said that it was: "An almost chuckle-free mess, so amateurish and lame that the cast often has that embarrassed look you see on dogs given ridiculous haircuts." However, the New York Daily News did praise the "surprisingly sweet-natured pairing" of Kutcher and Scott. In 2014, Adam Boult of The Guardian listed the film as a "guilty pleasure", saying Kutcher and Scott were underrated as comedic performers and while the film overall was disjointed, it was nonetheless "packed with so many throw-away gags and Dadaist one liners it’s impossible to absorb them all in a single sitting".

Box office

The film opened at number 2 at the North American box office, grossing US$13.8 million in its opening weekend behind the Paramount Pictures release What Women Want, which opened at the top spot with US$33 million. Its overall gross came to $46 million in the US and $73.2 million in total worldwide from a $13 million budget.

Home media and rights

The DVD was released on June 26, 2001, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. This release included 7 deleted and extended scenes, an audio commentary with Kutcher, Scott, and Leiner, a behind-the-scenes featurette, the music video for Grand Theft Audio's "Stoopid Ass", TV spots, and the theatrical trailer. The VHS version was released on November 6, 2001. In Australia (Region 4), it was released on VHS on September 26, 2001, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment South Pacific, with the DVD following in early 2002. In the United Kingdom (Region 2) it was released on home video on December 10, 2001. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment later released it on Blu-ray in 2008; the only special feature is the inclusion of the original theatrical trailer.

In 2019, Rupert Murdoch sold most of 21st Century Fox's film and television assets to Disney, and Dude, Where's My Car? was one of the films included in the deal. In the United States, Disney made it available on Hulu, which was one of the additional assets they acquired from Fox in the 2019 sale. It was also made available to stream on Disney+ in some international markets without Hulu.