“Strange Wilderness” is just a confused mess of fart jokes and bad plot hooks.

The story follows Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn), an unsuccessful wildlife show host, on his final, desperate bid to save his show and honor his father’s memory. With his randomly assembled cadre of friends, including sound man Fred (Allen Covert) and guy whose job is never actually explained Cooker (Jonah Hill), he embarks on a wacky and confusing journey to find the legendary Bigfoot.

The story is, at best, disjointed. Besides being vaguely centered around a wildlife show and following the same characters around for the whole hour and a half, the movie has no clear focus. It switches between mock-umentary, road trip comedy and wacky wilderness adventure in a way that could be described as anything but seamless.

This is Fred Wolf’s first attempt as the director of a feature film, and his inexperience shows.

The writing is equally weak. The story barely manages to hold itself together. The plot hooks are shoddy, the characters are one-dimensional and you can see the twists coming from a mile away.

Furthermore, there is no clear antagonist. Much of the characters’ misfortune is a direct symptom of their own incompetence. This is typical for wacky hijinks, but it also manages to breed a great deal of contempt for the characters as people.

As far as the comedy goes, the movie is pretty juvenile. Most of the jokes depend heavily on the audience reflex-giggling at any reference to excrement or genitals. There are also a few attempts to squeeze some humor out of jokes concerning female anatomy, Hispanics and alcoholism. Thankfully, these awkward stretches of bad jokes are off set by moments of genuine hilarity.

There is no denying that the cast is made up of actors fully capable of being hilarious, and the blessed few scenes where they improvise their lines end up being some of the best in the movie.

The main problem with this movie is that it was made about a decade too late. In the past, films like “American Pie” and “Scary Movie” worked because audiences expected an hour and a half of mindless crude humor. It was the norm among comedies to insult the intelligence of moviegoers. However, movies like “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” are now showing that a comprehensible storyline does not necessarily detract from the funniness of a film.

“Strange Wilderness” cannot be called the worst movie. When it manages to be funny, it does an excellent job, but the rest is far from unwatchable.

Bottomline, don’t waste your money.