Dick jokes and full-on idiot characters could easily be quite entertaining, but this hollow, consequence-free tale is pure cinematic cotton candy–light, fluffy, and good for a couple minutes before it gets old fast. There’s nothing by way of horror or thrills, only lots of “comedy” (ha ha, they’re eating poop–repeat) I don’t think lands. If there aren’t any stakes and nothing really matters, then all that’s left is dumb fun and I guess this one-note onslaught of relentless idiocy from *everyone* on screen isn’t an enjoyable time for me.

Four young people, Ian (Samuel Bottomley), Dean (Rian Gordon), Duncan (Lewis Gribben), and one who insists being called DJ Beatroot (Viraj Juneja), head out to the Scottish Highlands with teacher Mr. Carlyle (Jonathan Aris) to take part in The Duke of Edinburgh Award–a old school wilderness retreat designed to teach discipline, teamwork, and the like. Soon after their trek begins a man who refers to himself as The Duke (Eddie Izzard) begins hunting them across their journey. The youths flee The Duke as they bicker, joke, rap, and otherwise dick around across the Scottish Highlands in hopes of finding safety.

Are you fond of deficient, wacky sitcom characters that do things like get their head stuck in a turkey, accidentally lock themselves *in* a car, or otherwise behave like they’re Kramer, Andy Dwyer of Parks & Recreation, or Patrick from Spongebob? Brace yourself because that’s the intelligence level of all featured in this. Now, individually I’m a big fan of those morons who are or can be regularly hilarious–especially Andy–but in Idiots: The Movie (aka Get Duked!) damn near every person encountered proudly has the brain capacity of a 12 year old boy from the teens, to the cops, to The Duke. Once it becomes clear the antagonist is just as incompetent, dense, ineffective, and here for laughs as the stupid teens (if not moreso) all scares or suspense fully dissipate leaving only the comedic stylings of immature children and moron adults. They go to that people-eat-feces well on several occasions, for example, apparently under the impression it’s hilarious each and every time. 

Get Duked!  has a madcap, ADHD energy to it with some musical interludes (rap about dicks), tangents where they seem to forget they’re being hunted at all, plot turns that exist because the script requires it though they actively make no sense, and one occurrence that actually makes rooting for most of the teens almost impossible. I won’t elaborate with specifics, but between the lead up, execution, and aftermath of said occurrence I found the youths no more worthy to pull for than The Duke. I mean, overall the cast mostly does fine at being a bunch of deeply stupid & annoying humans but ultimately I don’t give a crap about their lame hijinks or if they survive. Well, actually, Kevin Guthrie as PC Hamish is rather painful to watch so “mostly fine” doesn’t apply there. Sorry, buddy.

Also, the stated goals of those involved are ignored or randomly brushed aside when quite achievable simply because the movie can’t be over yet and that repeated laziness removes me from the experience too many times. For instance, the teens want to survive the ordeal with their lives and The Duke wants to kill them–yet when given chance after chance to kill one the useless Duke chooses not to despite vocalizing ad nauseum his desire to off these kids or when the teens have windows of escape they decide not to because…well, because there’s more poop for the cast to eat! 

Things like Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block, Hot Fuzz, or Dead Set spring to mind as instances where the comedy/horror/thrills/etc are successfully mixed together whereas this frivolous fare mostly aims for comedy and winds up a hard no for me. However, with laughs being so subjective I’m sure plenty will find amusement here where all I see is haphazard, scattershot humor that inspires hearty eye-rolls instead of hearty laughs. While I’m happy to never watch this again and as far as any personal rankings go this is a two or three out of ten at best, a middle-of-the-road grade seems fair for these purposes.

5 out of 10 Deeply Stupid Poop Eaters