Dude, Where's My Car? (2000)

Image credit: Scott and Kutcher: Tracy Bennet

HEY 'DUDE' Scott and Kutcher break down barriers

The definition of aiming low is when the John Hughes film you're ripping off is ''Weird Science,'' the 1985 misfire that inadvertantly spawned an entire school of clueless buddy high jinks by wearing its slapdash idiocy on its sleeve. In Dude, Where's My Car?, slack grinned stoners Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott) wake up without any memory of the wild night before; as they quickly discover, it had something to do with a transsexual stripper, a suitcase filled with 200 grand, and a cult of alien obsessed geeks in bubble wrap jumpsuits.

Amid the big breast jokes, the 'racism is, like, cool'' caricatures of blacks and Asians, and the presumption that it will set off a major laff riot every time one of the heroes addresses the other as ''dude,'' there's a weirdly insistent gay subtext that becomes boldface text when Jesse and Chester, inspired by the presence of Fabio in the next car, engage in a long, heavy smooch at a stoplight. Perhaps that's their next excellent adventure.