Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
The fact that Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien’s screenplay is “sort of” based on a true story I think adds something I didn’t really expect to a film that plays, simply, like a less aggressive “Wedding Crashers”- urgency. The fact that somewhere in the world, Mike and Dave Stangle exist, and something like their exploits in this film occurred, is kind of reassuring and gives the film some authenticity it wouldn’t have had. That doesn’t make it funnier or less absurd, just more palpable. That, plus the work the four main actors do, helps this film be better than it probably has any right being.
The hook for the film is laid out in it’s title- the only way Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) will be allowed to attend their sister Jeanie’s (Sugar Lyn Beard) destination wedding in Hawaii is if they bring dates. The reason is simple- they’ve seemed to ruin every family event in their path that they go stag to, although as Dave is quick to point out, their grandfather’s heart attack at his 50th wedding anniversary is a little much to blame on them. After meeting dozens of prospects, they happen to “stumble” across Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick), who seem like ideal women for this task except for one thing…in reality, they’re just as messed up and raucous and Mike and Dave are. They just saw the brothers on Wendy Williams talking about their dilemma, and went about meeting them in a different way as those other women. When these girls are off the leash, they’re almost as dangerous as Mike and Dave are to the sense of structure the Stangles are looking for at a family event.
There are more than a few moments where I laughed probably disproportionately harder at jokes than I should have during this movie, although there are plenty of things that deserve hearty laughs here, like an ATV ride gone very bad and a trip to the massage parlor that goes to unexpected lengths for pleasure. Supporting actors like Beard, Alice Wetterlund as cousin Terry and Kumail Nanjiani as Keanu get big laughs, and play off of the leads very well. Of the four stars, Kendrick and Efron probably had the best material, with Devine and Plaza having the scene-stealing moments, although all four are adept at this time of off-the-wall humor. The problem is that it goes basically how you expect it to, in pretty much the way you think it will. It’s entertaining enough, but it’s not enough to really hit classic levels of hilarity that we hope for from something like this.
