Produced by Peter Chernin, Jonathan Levine, David Ready, and Jenno Topping. So that they can advertise themselves on TV find dates. Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) want a trip to Hawaii so they pretend to be “wholesome” girls and win over the boys and win the date.
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That’s exactly what happened last night when the duo surprised punters at a VIP screening of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates at HOYTS Eastgardens in Sydney (a cinema that’s got dope-ass reclining chairs, btw).
I say wait to see Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates on Cable. The trailers have been bad, the TV spots are annoying, and none of it looks that amusing. And after all that, why do they quickly and cavalierly confess their lies halfway through the movie, fizzling out all the tension?
While that’s not necessarily a bad target for which to aim, “Mike and Dave” only occasionally hits the mark, as most of the jokes aren’t amusing enough and the obligatory third-act attempt at injecting heart into the whole thing isn’t heartfelt enough. The other comes from extended screwball-type sequences. It has about 1/10th the laughs of any of those movies. That’s the underlying premise of the surprisingly engaging and very amusing “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates”. They can illicit laughs with just a facial expression. And Zac Efron, of the cut abs and two Neighbors movies, plays the studly Dave. “I think it’s a really cool story”, Efron said. The funnier lines are supposed to be used in the movie, not in the closing titles. “I sat next to my father at the premiere, and I think I watched his reactions more than the movie himself”.
In one of his first major film roles, DeVine magnifies his exaggerated behavior (seen before on Comedy Central’s Workaholics) to fit the big screen, but his boy-like charm makes even the most vulgar scenes more blush-worthy than revolting. Zac Efron and Adam Devine worked together before in their previous movie “Dirty Grandpa”. Adam Devine, is vein-poppingly intense and ridiculous as Mike, and squeezes in a laugh or two when he’s allowed to be his weirdest.
Paired with Efron and DeVine are hilarious heavy-hitters Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick playing a couple of deceitful party girls after a free ride to paradise. The chemistry among the four of them is fantastic.
That’s always been the fun of this variety of blockbuster, a certain kind of escapism that isn’t derived fantasy or even romance – just the thrill of seeing people behave in a manner that is simultaneously more honest and yet more removed from what we experience in everyday life. It’s a riot from start to finish if you like prolonged screwball shenanigans and raunchy ad-libbed back-and-forths. At the outset, Mike and Dave’s parents (Stephen Root and Stephanie Faracy) implore the boys to “grow up”, so as not to ruin another family event with drunken debauchery meant to impress women. I’m thinking the original ordeal was funnier than the film.
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Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates may be loosely based on “true events”, but the well-worn premise of a destination wedding gone wrong is all that’s needed for Hollywood and the Hawaii state tourism board to develop another broad (and very loud) romantic adventure comedy.
