Review: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is an insufferable wedding comedy not worth RSVP’ing for.
Based on the true life story of Mike and Dave Stangle, Mike and Dave Need Weddings Dates is the latest raunchy comedy to hit the big screen. In the film, Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) are forced to find “nice girls” to bring to their sister Jeanie’s (Sugar Lyn Beard) wedding in Hawaii. Why? Because Mike and Dave have previously ruined a series of family outings due to their immature and irrational behavior. The so called fun begins when Mike and Dave post an ad on Craigslist looking for dates. Their ad goes viral turning Mike and Dave into overnight internet sensations. Mike and Dave later appear on the Wendy Williams Show to help expedite their search. This is when Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) become aware of Mike and Dave’s search and form a plan to ensure the boys pick them in order to get a free trip to Hawaii.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a film that in my opinion showcases everything that is wrong with modern comedy. The film’s plot, which is based on a true story, should be somewhat interesting yet screenwriters Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien decide to turn this story into a insufferable and infantile joke fest. The humor is simply atrocious. The jokes are cheap, one-note, and uninspired. The humor found in this film is geared towards an individual who hasn’t sat through a raunchy comedy in the past 15 years. Every joke seems as if it was borrowed from another film that was slightly more clever than this one is.
To make matters even worse, the script does nothing to make Mike or Dave interesting or likable as characters. They are showcased as these two clueless brothers and truth be told they are immature and annoying as fuck. Adam Devine spends most of the runtime screaming and trying too hard to ensure that he is the most entertaining character in the film. The harsh reality is that Devine’s shtick gets old very fast and his character Mike is incredibly unlikable. In fact, while I can’t say that I really liked any character in the film, I can confidently say that Mike is the most unbearable one of the bunch.
As for the character Dave, Zac Efron continues to bat his pretty little blue eyes and take his shirt off for the camera. It is interesting to note that Dave has a lot less screen time than Mike. I don’t know if that last statement is true or whether I just got so damn annoyed by Devine every time he came on-screen that it just felt that way. Regardless of whether or not Devine got more screen-time than Efron, I definitely believe that too much time was focused on Mike. I do want to give Efron a little credit for being the most likable and least annoying character out of the four. Even though Dave wasn’t developed enough for the audience to truly care about him, I still felt that Efron was at least trying to make the bad material work as best as he could.
Aubrey Plaza continues to disappoint me as an actress ever since Parks and Recreation has ended. Her performance as Tatiana created the same level of disgust that I had for her character in Dirty Grandpa earlier this year. She’s rude and crude but that doesn’t make anything about her performance even remotely enjoyable. Tatiana is incredibly unlikable and one-dimensional, with a ridiculously stupid accent that is unbearable. I miss the smart and sarcastic Plaza roles but I guess smart and sarcastic doesn’t sell tickets at the box office. Its a real shame because she exhibited so much talent in a lot of her earlier independent work but nowadays she keeps taking on these lazy roles where all she does is act like a total skank.
Alongside Plaza, you have Anna Kendrick who really has absolutely nothing to do besides talk like a baby and repeatedly watch her wedding video on her cell phone. After seeing her in films like Mr. Right and Into the Woods, I really wonder what made her decide to take on a role like this. I completely understand that Plaza and Kendrick are trying to breakout into bigger films but they need to take on roles that actually showcase their talent. Don’t even get me started on how this film represents females and how it objectifies them. This film is so beneath Plaza and Kendrick that I actually feel a certain amount of disgust towards them as actresses for doing this simply to earn a paycheck.
The members of Mike and Dave family include Stephen Root, Sam Richardson, Stephanie Faracy, Alice Wetterlund and Sugar Lyn Beard. Most of the the family is just there to move the story along but some of the characters are given ample amount of screen time just so the film can shift the focus from Mike and Dave to these other equally stupid and unlikable characters. Beard tries so hard to be funny in the film but the material just didn’t make it happen. The massage scene featured Beard making weird facial expressions while Kumail Nanjiani was doing all sorts of weird sexual things to her body. This particular scene was beyond cringeworthy. It was so painfully unfunny that I actually had to fight the urge to walk out of the film at this point. Alice Wetterlund is equally cringeworthy as Mike and Dave’s bi-sexual cousin Terry who wants to sleep with Tatiana and spends most of her time on-screen hitting on her.
There is this huge inconsistency with Jeanie Stangle’s face throughout the film. As you know from the trailer, she gets hits in the face by an ATV yet somehow after the incident, she manages to have only a minor cut on her lip and a puffy face until the last few minutes of the film. It is also weird how Tatiana and Alice are suppose to be best friends but after the initial setup barely have any scenes together. I should also take a moment to point out that if you have seen both the green and red band trailers, most of the funniest jokes (I guess) can be found in those trailers. There are a lot of other things that I could spend time addressing but I already spent far too much time on this review as it is.
All in all, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates starts off poorly and only gets worse as it goes along. The film haphazardly tries to convey scenes of heart and sincerity but nothing about those moments feel genuine or real. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a complete by the numbers comedy that somehow believes it is being clever simply by referencing other films and being filled with non-stop crude humor and dialogue. What the film ultimately is a prime example of a lazy and forgettable R rated comedy with nothing new to offer. It takes a somewhat interesting concept and does absolutely nothing with it. The film is as predictable as they come and the actors just come off as annoying and trying way too hard to be humorous. It is a insufferable comedic wedding not worth RSVP’ing for.
Scott “Movie Man” Menzel’s final rating for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a 3 out of 10.
