Publication Date: 11-25-2025

Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This? (2025) review

Dir. Marcus Raboy

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This? — his first special since #Adulting back in 2022, and his ninth overall dating back to 2005 — is less of a comedy routine and more of discombobulating rantings from someone who, to quote the generation of zoomers he seems to loathe, has lost the plot.

Filmed at the CIBC Theatre on Chicago’s beautiful Monroe Street, shortly after now-President Donald Trump secured reelection in 2024, Bill Maher appears wanting to take everyone’s mind off of the tornadic blend of uncertainty and “promises made” from the convicted felon. This would’ve been an ideal time for the kind of observational humor at which Maher has excelled for years. It’s part of what makes his routine “New Rules” segment on his show Real Time so endearing and blisteringly funny. Despite foremost being a political commentator, Maher has the kind of astute eye that’s views are best communicated through a comedian’s voice and proclivity for timing.

While this breed of material does show up with 15 minutes left in the special, it’s mostly facile observations about the behaviors of men and women on dating apps (material Maher tackled previously in #Adulting) and arrives at a point when you’re more-than-likely exhausted by all that’s been spewed leading up to that point.

Instead, Is Anyone Else Seeing This? is his most scatterbrained special yet. Worst of all, Maher’s delivery is lacking so much so that when he blurts out purposefully incendiary statements like, “Really? Marching for Hamas? It’s like rooting for the planes on 9/11!”, he’s met with stone-cold silence. It’s not that a portion of the Chicago crowd doesn’t agree with Maher’s comp, but the way in which it’s delivered — interrupting a winding, long-winded monologue about how college students are all brainwashed by “woke” bullshit — doesn’t hit like a punchline. Instead, it comes across as a rather subtle rib in the midst of winding monologue that Maher doesn’t know how to land.

So, while not explicitly tackling what “Trump 2.0” in the White House might look like, Maher spends 67 minutes hurling snowballs at cancel culture and “woke” ideology, specifically tackling the trans community for large stretches of the special. He even bloviates about gender reassignment surgery, and how penises can be constructed using the skin of one’s thighs. It’s all crass and unfunny. Part of the reason the left continues to lose its grasp on America is its insistence on making transgenderism a focal issue when, in reality, it’s an issue that pertains to 0.8% of the country. It applies to desperately few and alienates the rest. Maher’s commentary will effectively please no one.

Maher spends the first half of his special unloading on the left for their virtue signaling and faux outrage, including young people who believe that individuals from hundreds of years ago should be held accountable for owning slaves and other contemporary offenses. Valid point. He calls universities “four-year daycare centers for the crybullies of the privileged,” and that rejects the assertion levied by many that he’s become more conservative as he nears 70-years-old. It’s there where he starts to sound like my grandmother when I went to college.

He’s still got plenty of ammunition for Republicans, however. They’re too Christ-y, they’re fiscally hypocritical, and they’re comprised of a wealthy group of bureaucrats who blame the underprivileged for the country’s problems when their funds would better be spent on a large mirror. As you can see, there are morsels of truth and perception to be found, as is the case with anything Maher has done and continues to do. However, as of late, he too often mistakes lecturing for entertainment. He tows the line of the all-knowing centrist, who calls out the misdeeds of both political parties, sparsely picking a side, and then claims to be a person guided by “common sense.”

In reality, he seems to be a person stoked by whatever angers him on any given day. Tis the peril of being a political commentator, especially in today’s landscape. You’re ever-present almost every day, helping fuel the daily outrage machine. One day, you’re gone. You’re mourned for a few days and then your impact and legacy is minimal, save for inspiring the next generation of airbags who love the sound of their own voice.

My review of Bill Maher: #Adulting (2022)

Directed by: Marcus Raboy.