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    Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” is a comedy that’s frequently very funny, but it’s only because of the talented cast. The script often goes for cheap jokes and desperately needed a couple more runs through the writing machine. My recommendation is due to a team of talented actors that come to save the day.

    Michael (Adam DeVine) and David Stangle (Zac Efron)’s extreme party attitudes and wild antics have ruined every family event they’ve attended. To prevent their sister Jeanie’s Hawaii wedding from suffering the same fate, they’re ordered to bring nice, respectable girls to the celebration to keep them in check. Enter Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick), two schemers who pretend to be civilized so they can get a free vacation out of the brothers.

    Frequently, “Mike and Dave” is very clever. The idea of two ladies taking advantage of a couple of dummies to get a Hawaii vacation, of them laughing behind the backs of everyone as they undercut every expectation put upon them by their dates and go about alternatively winning the hearts of the family and infuriating Mike and Dave, it’s terrific. Unfortunately, often the film reaches for the easiest jokes, the one we’ve seen time and time again. How frequently have we seen someone take drugs and go on a wild trip so they can ruin everything and shock the people around them? Sure it’s funny to see Tatiana and Alice take advantage of Mike and Dave but periodically, all four of them become so stupid that you realize the whole picture is set in some fantasy world governed by Hollywood contrivances instead of really exploring what this story would be like. It throws in would-be gags I am getting particularly tired of, like simply showing nudity and expecting the audience to laugh out of surprise and disgust. Come on movie, you can do better than that. Couldn’t anyone see the actors going off-script and playing off each other, improving the material by tossing away line after line? I know that’s a trend now, but I think if it happens in every good take, you should take a day or two and go through your story and tighten it up a bit.

    Ever since I saw her in “Safety Last”, I’ve liked Aubrey Plaza. She’s perfect for this role. Acidic but simultaneously charming, your eyes are always drawn to her. This team of Tatiana and Alice is downright hilarious. They feel like real friends, always getting themselves into trouble and going for the cheapest, sleaziest most dishonest solution every time. They’re a couple of broke, party-going wolves that stumble upon the slowest, most gullible sheep they could find but instead of eating them right away, they get the wooly quadrupeds to do their laundry first. Credit is also due to Anna Kendrick, who does her share of setting up jokes, bouncing the comedy ball thrown at her promptly, escalating the energy in all of her scenes and ensuring the audience will leave no scene featuring the two she-devils without a smile. You can tell that the funniest material in the film comes from these two playing off each other and filling the gaping holes in the script.

    That’s not to say that the male leads are bad. Actually, they’d be the stars of the show if it weren’t for the fact that they’re given less meaty roles than the two con-artists. Even in bad comedies, like a certain one found earlier this year featuring Robert DeNiro as a perverted grandfather, Zac Efron is charismatic. He’s got the mannerisms and the timing needed for this role and right next to him, ready to tap in is Adam DeVine, equally adept at dispensing laughs. I enjoyed several of the secondary characters as well. Alice Wetterlund as cousin Terry has one scene I can’t get out of my head. I don’t know if I should be disgusted, turned on, or confused, but I like it. Equally perplexing is Sugar Lyn Beard as Jeanie, Mike and David’s sister. When she came on-screen, I thought she looked a tad familiar and her voice rang a bell. Only later did I realize that I’d see her before, way back when I was a kid watching TV. She was the host of “The Zone”on YTV. Now she’s all grown up and getting “married”. She’s got some raunchy scenes in the movie (scenes that wound up being much funnier than the trailer led me to believe they would be), I’m laughing at how crazy the whole thing is and it dawns on me that I’m a grown man, she’s a grown woman in an R-rated comedy … What a weird scenario. It’s got nothing to do with the movie itself, though she does well in her role, but this feeling I have is one I’m going to be turning over in my head for a long time.

    “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” is not as funny as it could’ve been despite the talented cast. I still recommend it. The chemistry between these actors elevates what could have been garbage to an enjoyable evening at the theater. Stick around for the end credits too, you get some gag reels as well as a rap song by Adam DeVine and Zac Efron that’s catchy and surprisingly amusing. (Theatrical version on the big screen, July 12, 2016)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  15.7.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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