Part buddy comedy, part fish-out-of-water story, part nature tale, Meet the Deedles is not nearly as interesting as any of those archetypes. In fact, it is an invitation you ought to disregard.
Phil and Stew Deedle (Paul Walker and Steve Van Wormer) are the twin sons of the famous millionaire, Elton Deedle (Eric Braeden), founder of Deedle Enterprises. Elton wants his sons to be the perfect heirs to his fortune…instead the two are careless Hawaiian surf bums. To set them straight, he enrolls them into a strict Wyoming boot camp, to which the pair inevitably go.
After several misadventures in Wyoming, where the duo is stunned to discover there’s no surf, the brothers Deedle stumble upon a routine mistaken identity plot. They arrive at Yellowstone National Park, where they are believed to be two new park ranger recruits. Rather than slinking back home and disappointing their dad, the Deedles play along. Phil, actually, has other motives: the beautiful park ranger Jesse (A. J. Langer), who unfortunately happens to be the beloved stepdaughter of the overprotective Park Ranger Captain Douglas Pine (John Ashton).
Yellowstone has a problem. It’s only a week before the famous geyser Old Faithful celebrates its one billionth birthday, and the park is being overrun with prairie dogs. Not just one or two…thousands of them. The Deedles are assigned to eliminate the P.Dog menace, not knowing that it all is part of a fiendish plan by disgraced former Head Ranger Frank Slater (Dennis Hopper).
The Brothers Deedle aren’t supposed to be out-and-out stupid, like the team from Dumb and Dumber, or Bill and Ted. Instead, their brains just operate in a different, simpler, realm. A more accurate comparison would be with Carrot Top in Chairman of the Board, a film which, unfortunately, this one resembles in several hideous ways.
The central problem with Meet the Deedles is that it simply just isn’t funny. There’s a moment when Phil utters the line, “Insert Laugh Here”, which nearly sums up the entire Meet the Deedles experience.
The result isn’t bad in a run-shrieking-from-the-theater type of way. Instead, it’s merely bad in an excruciatingly boring sort of way. The cast seems decent, but they’re never asked to do anything remotely interesting. Instead, the film inundates the audience with countless shots of people and/or cars rolling downhill in the forest, and with constant annoying references to other Disney films.
You’ll have much better luck finding a good spot to surf in Wyoming than finding entertainment in Meet the Deedles.