MEET THE DEEDLES
A pair of rich Hawaiian twins, Stew and Phil Deedle (Steve Van Wormer
and Paul Walker) have skipped school to surf once too often. Their detached
father sends them away to a reality camp in Wyoming, but on the way they
have a series of mishaps, finally ending up at Yellowstone National Park.
The ranger in charge, Capt. Douglas Pine (John Ashton) and his step-daughter,
Lt. Jesse Ryan (A.J. Langer), who is also a ranger, think the Deedles are
Mel and Mo, a pair of naturalists who are supposed to be on the way to eliminate
a problem the park's been having with an infestation of prairie dogs. But
the real Mel and Mo (Ana Gasteyer and Megan Cavanaugh) are detained as a
direct result of one of the Deedles' aforementioned mishaps.
The Deedles decide to use this little confusion to masquerade as Mel
and Mo, because they like the uniforms and because Lt. Jesse is a really
fabulous babe. So they sign on and begin working on the prairie dog problem
while concurrently trying to schmooze Jesse, who is watched like a hawk
by her overprotective stepfather. But the prairie dog problem is no accident
of nature: it was engineered from the vast underground lair of Frank Slater
(Dennis Hopper), a disgruntled former ranger who was let go and wants to
ruin Pine's upcoming celebration of the one billionth eruption of Old Faithful.
Can the boys pull off this charade without anyone finding out who they
really are, or will the real Mel and Mo show up and ruin all their plans?
Can they foil Slater's plot and solve the prairie dog problem before the
celebration? Can they get in Jesse's pants without her dad knowing? Do we
care? All these questions can be answered, but the downside is you have
to pay the admission price to find out.
I admit there were a few moments in this movie when a smile may have been detectable on my face. The boys' characterizations are the kind of valley-boy schtick one may remember from Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) or anything ever done by Pauly Shore. If you can stomach that for an hour and a half, and if you really don't have anything better to do, you might get a laugh or two from The Deedles. But don't say I sent you. *½