Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is one of those movies that always seems on the cusp of getting a big laugh, but it either falls short, or it blows the punchline.  There are some small chuckles and I smiled a few times, but I never full-out laughed like I was hoping.  Still, the movie never offends and is perfectly watchable.  Of the three "raunchy" comedies Zac Efron has done this year (the other two being Dirty Grandpa from January, and May's Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising), this one is easily the top.

Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave Stangle (Efron) are not just brothers, they're also best friends, though you have to wonder how much of that is due to the fact they're the only ones who can tolerate one another.  Even their family seems to be on their last nerve with the guys.  In the film's opening, we get a montage of how the two constantly foul up each and every family gathering, such as when they blow up the Fourth of July party with their fireworks display.  Their long suffering father (Stephen Root) has had it with cleaning up their messes, and decides to put his foot down.  Their little sister, Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard), is getting married in Hawaii soon, and he gives Mike and Dave an ultimatum - They must find nice, sensible girls who will keep them in line at the wedding, or else they won't be allowed to attend.

As a premise for a comedy, this is a somewhat flimsy one, as it's never really explained how having dates will somehow keep Mike and Dave from getting drunk and making jerks out of themselves in front of everybody.  And if the movie had more laughs, I probably wouldn't have cared about this detail.  But I digress.  The guys put an ad up on Craigslist seeking dates, and it ends up going viral, and getting them appearances on talk shows.  This catches the attention of two women, Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza, who starred alongside Efron in Dirty Grandpa) and Alice (Anna Kendrick).  They're both down on their luck, have been fired from their job for showing up drunk too many times, and feel they need a vacation.  And since the guys are offering a free trip to Hawaii, they track them down and try to pretend that they are the sensible and successful women that they are looking for, instead of the porno-addicted, ecstasy pill-popping wrecks that they really are.  I can actually see this premise of the women pretending to be something they're not leading to some big laughs, but the movie is fairly restrained, despite a game effort from most of the cast.

There is a real life Mike and Dave Stangle, and they actually did put an ad out on Craigslist looking for wedding dates.  The movie even opens with a somewhat humorous subtitle reading, "Based on a True Story...Sort of".  Although I don't know the real story, I have a feeling this is accurate, as I'm sure what I described at the top of this paragraph is the only thing the real story and the movie have in common.  Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates obviously wants to be a raucous and naughty comedy for adults, but it often seems oddly tame.  The titular brothers are more nice, sensitive dimwits than the hard-partying frat boys that the movie leads us to believe they are early on.  As for Tatiana and Alice, they're not so bad either.  Well, at least Alice, isn't.  She's a woman who's been crushed by life (her fiance left her at the altar while they were giving their wedding vows), and doesn't know how to move on.  Tatiana is less defined as a character.  She likes to talk dirty, and isn't shy about sex, but the movie never really gives her a real personality or background.  She's mean to Mike, the guy she's supposed to be pretending to be in love with, for most of the movie, then she suddenly warms up to him for reasons the script keeps to itself.

This creates a weird imbalance throughout the film.  While Dave and Alice actually go through a character arc and get to share some genuinely nice scenes where we see them getting closer and helping each other, Mike and Tatiana pretty much stay the same, and act obnoxious throughout.  The thing is, I liked Dave and Alice.  Efron and Kendrick have surprisingly good chemistry together, even when they're supposed to be funny and stupid.  But Devine and Plaza never clicked with me.  Both of their performances left a bad impression on me, and I never warmed up to them like I was supposed to.  The movie ends up being a mixed bag of a few select scenes that are kind of funny and sweet, and a lot of other scenes that just don't work.  I was also kind of confused with the way the characters constantly namedrop movie titles in the dialogue.  Films like Jurassic Park, Dangerous Minds, Taken, Wedding Crashers and Scarface are constantly being brought up, but nothing funny is said or done with them.  These characters just drop the titles in their dialogue, and mention that they've seen them once.  Good to know, I guess. 

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is never anything bad, it simply lacks the energy and the daring to truly make the audience laugh.  It's a movie that ends up being kind of pleasant and forgettable, when it should be the kind of movie that has us shaking our heads and laughing as we think back on it.  Despite what the title suggests, what I think this movie really needed was another draft or two at the script level.

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