My Review of "Get Duked!"

Get Duked is a coming of age story that came out in 2019. I've never heard of this title before but it seemed like a fun concept. Although I wasn't expecting much from this movie it was actually better than I had anticipated. That's not to say it was remarkable. I could tell it was targeted to a younger audience though.

This movie starts off the explanation of the Duke of Edinburgh award. I'm unfamiliar with British monarchy but apparently the Duke of Edinburgh is the queen's husband. Basically what they want to do is bring troubled youth to the wilderness so that they can bond and learn about themselves. The award will look good on applications for higher learning.

In this case, we have three troubled youth and one overachieving youth. The three troubled youth are friends that had recently gotten into trouble. As punishment they had to go through this Duke of Edinburgh test. We have DJ Beatroot who is this poser kid that wants to become really popular with social media. There's also Dean who is a troubled youth that doesn't have any hope for his own future. Then there's Duncan who is their somewhat dimwitted friend. Finally we have Ian who is the overachieving youth that's to chaperone these delinquents.

The delinquent kids pretty much hit all of the stereotype troubled kids we see in a lot of British films and TV shows. In a way this made the movie very familiar in a good way and in some ways bad. It's good because I'm familiar with what they're going with and I can laugh along with a lot of the jokes. Unfortunately it's kind of predictable too and I am very familiar with a lot of the jokes. Luckily I was in the mood for such familiarity so I was amused at a lot of their antics.

The kids discover why they're there and think it's going to be a cakewalk to their destination. Obviously they're going to be idiots while traveling through the countryside but I had fun with a lot of the antics.

Little do they know that there's someone watching them while traveling through the countryside. They soon discover that there's someone out to kill them. The true reason why they have this award is to "purify" society so to speak from delinquent youth. I could have sworn I heard of this plotline before but I just can't put my finger on it.

The boys are ridiculous and find ways of getting out of the various insane situations they get into. I would have liked a lot more of them working together but by the end there's some things that happen that are quite convenient to the story but then again that's how a lot of British films go. It's fun but a little more of the same.

We learn more about the history of each of the boys and we learn what makes them tick. Not too much time is spent on this character exploration because it's mostly a comedy for youth. More attention was spent on the antics and the variety of situations they get themselves into.

It's weird how they end off the movie as if there could possibly be a sequel to the movie but makes it a little difficult to explain how they could do a sequel to this movie.

Overall, I still had fun with this movie. I understand the target audience for this movie and in that sense I think they kind of nailed this movie. Adults watching this movie might be able to be amused by it but it's definitely not going to blow your minds or anything. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It is fun enough that I would be able to tell a friend to watch it but only if they don't have anything else to watch.