Idiots' Review: Low-Effort Road Comedy Misses Mark

Idiots Review: Low-Effort Road Comedy Misses Mark in 2026 The trailer promised chaos. Two mismatched strangers, a beat-up RV, and a cross-country dash to a wedding neither of them wants to attend. On paper, it's a formula that's worked since Planes, Trains and Automobiles*. Idiots* feels like someone fed every road comedy trope into an algorithm and forgot to add the part where anyone actually cares.

I walked out of the theater checking my phone. Not because I had somewhere to be. Because the movie had already left my head. What Is Idiots Idiots* is the latest studio comedy from director Marcus Velluto, whose last credit was the forgettable Office Party* (2023).

The premise: Dale (Jason Sudeikis), a washed-up motivational speaker who peaked with one viral TEDx talk in 2019, gets roped into driving his estranged sister's fiancé, Milo (Kelvin Harrison Jr. ), from Chicago to a destination wedding in Sedona. Dale needs the gas money. Milo needs a ride.

The RV breaks down. Hijinks supposedly ensue. The title is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It's not The Idiots* — no definite article, no irony.

Just Idiots*. Plural. As if the filmmakers want you to know exactly who the joke is on. The Cast Tries Harder Than the Script Sudeikis has made a career of playing charmingly oblivious men who eventually reveal a tender core.

He does that here too. The problem is the script gives him exactly two modes: smug and sad. No third gear. Harrison Jr.

is a genuinely gifted actor — Waves*, The Trial of the Chicago 7* — but Milo is written as a collection of quirks instead of a person. He carries a vintage film camera. He quotes Rilke. He has a panic attack in a Cracker Barrel parking lot.

None of it connects. The supporting cast appears in what amounts to cameo roulette. Judy Greer as a psychic gas station attendant. Pete Davidson as a conspiracy-theorist trucker.

Michaela Watkins as a bride-to-be who gets maybe four lines. They show up, do a bit, vanish. You feel their agents negotiating screen time. Why It Matters / Why People Care Studio comedies are dying.

That's not hyperbole — it's box office data. In 2023, only three original live-action comedies cracked $100 million domestic. 2024 was worse. 2025 saw The Hangover* reboot nobody asked for flop at $42 million.

The genre has migrated to streaming, where lower budgets mean lower stakes and, usually, lower quality. Idiots* matters because it's a test case. Can a theatrical comedy still work in 2026 without an IP attached, without a superhero cameo, without a built-in audience? The answer, based on opening weekend ($11.2 million on a $45 million budget), is no.

But the why is more interesting than the number. Audiences didn't stay away because they hate comedies. They stayed away because the marketing sold a movie that doesn't exist. The trailer cuts together every laugh line in the film — and I mean every* one.

There are no surprises left. Worse, the trailer promises a movie about two men learning from each other. The actual movie is about two men enduring a series of disconnected sketches until the runtime hits 103 minutes and the wedding happens. The Streaming Shadow Here's what the studio doesn't want you to consider: Idiots* was originally slated for a streaming debut.

In other news: Newsom Voices Concerns Over Paramount Antitrust Suit and Jodie Foster Films Top Netflix This Week.

Test screenings reportedly scored "surprisingly high," so they pivoted to theatrical. You can feel that pivot in the editing. Scenes that would play fine on a laptop — a long improv riff about gas station hot dogs, a dream sequence where Dale fights a CGI eagle — drag on a theater screen. The pacing assumes a pause button.

How It Works (or How to Do It) Road comedies live or die by structure. The classic template: inciting incident forces travel, escalating obstacles force character revelation, climax at destination resolves both external and internal arcs. Idiots* has the skeleton but no connective tissue. Act One: Chicago to Nowhere The first 25 minutes are the strongest.

Dale's motivational speaker backstory gets a clever visual treatment — we see his one viral moment ("Failure Is Just Success Waiting for a Better Outfit") replayed on airport monitors, dentist office TVs, a kid's tablet. Sudeikis sells the quiet humiliation of a man whose defining achievement is becoming a meme he hates. Milo's introduction is thinner. We learn he's a "creative strategist" (whatever that means), he's terrified of commitment, and he once drove a U-Haul across Canada for an art project.

That last detail is meant to establish adventure credentials. It mostly establishes that the screenwriter needed a reason he'd agree to this trip. The RV breakdown at a Flying J outside Indianapolis should be the first major turning point. Instead, it becomes a 15-minute set piece involving a feral cat, a broken toilet, and Pete Davidson's trucker character explaining chemtrails.

None of it advances character. It's just stuff happening*. Act Two: The Middle That Isn't This is where the movie forgets it's a story and becomes a sketch show. - A detour to Dale's ex-girlfriend's goat farm in Missouri.

She's married now. Her husband is nice. Dale acts weird. They leave.

Nothing changes.

• A night in a haunted hotel in Kansas. Not actually haunted. Just a prank by local teens. Milo bonds with the teens over vinyl records. Dale gets locked in a walk-in freezer. It's Home Alone* for 40-year-olds.
• The psychic gas station scene. Judy Greer reads Dale's palm, tells him "your greatest failure is thinking you're the main character." The movie treats this as profound. It's a fortune cookie. Each vignette resets the relationship to zero. Dale and Milo bicker, share a moment of vulnerability, then the next scene acts like the vulnerability never happened. By the third cycle, you stop believing the moments. Act Three: Sedona and the Non-Ending They arrive. The wedding is beautiful. The bride (Watkins) has a panic attack. Dale gives a toast that's supposed to be messy and heartfelt but lands as self-indulgent. Milo realizes he loves his fiancée — a character we've never met — because.