There are few things worse than a comedy that isn’t funny. This is not to say that Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is completely void of humor, but overall its single-dimensional characters and clunky plot leave you with nothing to hold on to after the film is over.
Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) are brothers who also work together as liquor salesmen. After the opening credits montage of their successful partying moments, we next see them trying to con a bar owner into buying the liquor they are selling. Their ruse is stupid, which the bartender points out before their bit finishes, but they are charming enough to eventually make the sale. This encompasses both the characters and the general plot of the film: these guys are really dumb, but they get by on their good looks and the kindness of strangers. While this tends to work on the other characters within the film, their sympathetic good fortune does not extend to the audience.
Mike and Dave’s parents stage an intervention over their partying. It seems that while they remember all of the good fun that comes out of their wild ways, their parents are often the ones picking up all of the pieces. With their sister’s Jeanie (Sugar Lyn) impending Hawaiian wedding their parents insist that the brothers bring “nice girls” as their dates to control their wild behavior. Not knowing how to behave properly, Mike and Dave post an ad for “nice girls” on Craigslist.
Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) get wind of the boys’ scheme after it goes viral and commit themselves to winning those dates. They are unemployed, hard-drinking, Rihanna devoted, cocktail waitresses, and most certainly not “nice girls.” Just like the boys fooled the bartender, Alice and Tatiana trick the boys into thinking they are more innocent than they truly are and get invited to Hawaii.
After getting to the island, the foursome stumbles from one supposed to be funny scene to the next. These are generally forgettable comedy bits ranging from a bad drug trip to an overtly sexual spa massage. The only one that really brought some laughs was the ATV tour through the valley where Jurassic Park was filmed. The picturesque scenery and terror in the boys’ eyes while watching the women jump their vehicles through the air was a bright spot in the generally dull film.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is not terribly executed, and all of the performances are adequate, rather it suffers from a complete lack of passion and originality. We’ve seen this film and met these characters so many times before that the filmmakers never seem to fully invest in their own film. We are merely presented with these stereotypes and never given a reason to care about them.
The one redeeming quality of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is the fact that their underestimation of women consistently leads to trouble for Mike and Dave. Their first major mistake is to even assume that there are “nice girls” out there in the world, and their demeaning assumption makes them deserve all of the pain they having coming for them. Unfortunately the film barely notices this fact, but the audience can connect the dots easily on their own.
The plot doesn’t really make sense, and the characters are forgettable. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates could be a mildly entertaining way to burn 106 minutes, but I’d be surprised if it is the best option for your time.
Rating: R
Director: Jake Szymanski
Cast:
Zac Efron
Anna Kendrick
Adam Devine
Aubrey Plaza
Stephen Root
Film Length: 106 minutes
Release Date: July 8, 2016
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
