""No one seems to have told the Lonely Island boys that the stakes are a little higher in features than they are in music videos and that underlighted shots and sloppy editing are more distracting on the big screen than on television," wrote Marjorie Baumgarten of "The Austin Chronicle".Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" characterized the film as "playfully dumb," commenting, "The filmmakers [...] have skipped right past the kitsch of tribute and gone straight for jokey delusion [...] And in that sense, "Hot Rod" is post-parody, taking nothing seriously, not even being a movie."