Strange Brew (1983) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Henry J. Fromage (Four Beers) –
How many beers do you recommend for this movie?
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“Why don’t we have a review for this, or at least a drinking game yet, Movieboozer?” Well, John Q. Public, that is a good question. You see, despite running a website based entirely on the beautiful, near sensual relationship between movies and beer, I’ve never even watched this before. Now, stop shaking your head at me. We all have our faults.
Statistically, John Q. Public
Strange Brew relates the misadventures of Canadian beer drunks Bob & Doug McKenzie (Dave Thomas and Rick Muthafuckin’ Moranis- just using what it says on his birth certificate) as their attempt to swindle a free case of beer ends up dragging them into an intricate plot involving a beautiful young heiress, a crazed asylum warden, mind control beer, and several forms of hockey. What can I say? It’s Canada.
A Toast
Bob & Doug were stars of the Canadian comedy scene for years before their feature debut, and right from the start they go big. The whole opening is a bravura, extremely meta sequence which involves an amazingly low-budget movie within a movie within a movie. It’s both hilarious and more Canadian than Wayne Gretzky on a zamboni throwing Timbits and cans of Molson into the Bell Centre crowd. Both of those traits thankfully persist for most of the flick.
Almost this Canadian
Obviously, we also have to toast the fact that the whole plot, and most of Bob & Doug’s lives, hinges on a quest for free beer. The fact that this quest involves epic van jumps, hockey-playing stormtroopers, and flying skunk dogs is just the icing on the cake.
Beer Two
It also involves lots and lots of 80s computers. As anyone who’s ever watched a mid-80s film knows, computers are devil magic that can do anything.
Except produce a dream woman that’ll actually have sex with you
Beer Three
Those computers figure heavily into the plot, which in the end is just your basic evil scientist corporate takeover world domination story, foiled of course by our heroes. Unfortunately, that sounds significantly more interesting on paper than it is in reality, and as the plot moves further way from Bob & Doug’s bumming around and scheming ways to score free beer, the less interesting it becomes.
Beer Four
Pour down a last beer to the fact that they didn’t just stick with those free beer hijinks for the whole movie. By far the funniest parts of the film are clustered at the beginning, before the ridiculous plot takes over.
Fans of beer, Canadian humor, and humor in general should find enough worth liking in Strange Brew. In the worst case, there are few more appropriate drinking game movies out there.
Go to the Movieboozer.com Strange Brew (1983) Drinking Game
