Look, I know I said this was going to be a video review but I'm gonna be honest with you guys: I've been having a really rough go of it at work lately. Not reviewing, I mean my actual job. I won't bore you with the specifics because a) that's not why you're here and b) the facility's confidentiality policies would probably result in my termination if I were to violate them but long and short of it is that I haven't felt terribly great about things for the last couple of months while I've been on the clock and found myself in dire need of a good laugh. I don't have very many comedies on my "Movies I've Seen This Year" list and decided that even if work hadn't been the way it has, I needed to see more comedies so I took a stab at the xBox Video rental selection and wound up with Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates.
Our story, inspired by a true one, puts us at the side of Mike and Dave Stangle (Adam DeVine and Zac Efron), two brothers who are known to get overly riled up and out of control at family get-togethers. Their parents have had enough of their shit and don't want them to ruin their sister's (Sugar Lyn Beard) wedding in Hawaii so their father demands that the boys bring respectable dates to the event to keep themselves in check. Unsure of how to go about this, they run an ad on Craigslist advertising a free trip to Hawaii and are answered by Alice and Tatiana (Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza), two wild girls fresh off of being fired from their jobs who see the ad as a means for a free vacation. They put on the facade of being "nice girls" and convince the brothers to take them and, as you can imagine, as soon as they reach the island, shit flies south fast.
Not a bad setup, right? Too bad the same can't be said about the rest of the movie. There's no really nice way to put this so I'll be blunt: Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates is a fucking terrible movie. I went into this film hoping for some hearty guffaws to lift my spirits and forget my troubles and was greeted by an obnoxious chore of a film that dragged along like a zombie with a broken leg. If this film was hyped up as a milestone event film the same way movies like Star Wars: Rogue One are, I would consider Mike & Dave a fucking blight to the genre.
Where to start? If this movie is supposed to be a comedy (you know, those movies that are supposed to make you laugh), why wasn't there anything remotely amusing until almost 15 minutes in? The kind of humor that the movie shoots for isn't the clever, witty writing kind but more crude and loud moments where the characters either goof off or shout for long periods of time at something disgusting, sexual or both. Sometimes these moments would go on for so long that you feel that the particular dead horse that the characters are beating was already a fine paste before they began throwing their fists at it. Sadly, this is something that I've noticed in a lot of comedies: apparently loud noises and exposed skin counts as a goddamn joke nowadays and the longer it goes on, the funnier the movie thinks it is. Spoiler alert: it ISN'T.
As far as the characters themselves go, they can go piss up a rope. I was not invested in any of these characters to want me to root for them to get back into the swing of things, to grow as individuals and let go of their own insecurities or anything like that. Many of them came off as so astoundingly douchey that I couldn't believe that we were actually supposed to give a damn about their personal problems which play out so predictably that you can call the outcome of the film mere minutes into the runtime.
They never explain why Mike and Cousin Terry (Alice Wetterlund) have such animosity towards each other and it keeps popping up in the plot like a floater that won't flush.
There are two more things that I would like to address about this movie. First, the movie takes place on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, the same island where some of Jurassic Park was filmed. Of course, the movie brings this up when Tatiana suggests that they go on this ATV Movie Tour where they ride quads around where Jurassic Park was shot (namely the Gallimimus paddock). At this point, I had come to the conclusion that I hated this movie and my reaction was, "HEY, FUCK YOU! LEAVE JURASSIC PARK OUT OF THIS!" However, it did give me the idea to look up whether or not this is an actual thing you can do and if that's the case, I'd totally get in on that.
Second, there are three moments in the movie where the characters try to do the right thing and actually show some growth to an extent for a sincere moment. Yet when you feel like you like you just might consider the idea of actually liking these guys and gals, the script comes along and does something ridiculous that not so much pulls you out of the moment but more like stomps on you like you were a bag of flaming dog shit and laughs at your expense.
Final Verdict: I gave this one a fair shot, ladies and gentlemen. I really did. I went in with an open mind and walked away with my skin crawling. 20 minutes in, I came to the conclusion that this wasn't a movie for me with the official "I fucking hate this thing" coming 15 minutes later while I still had another hour to go. Tatiana has a phrase in this movie that she uses a couple of times, "Man, fuck it in the dick." Surprisingly enough, that's how I feel about this movie. Fuck this movie in the dick! Fuck it in the dick so hard that said dick splits down the middle like chopped firewood. While I am having a hard time deciphering whether or not this was worse than Gods Of Egypt, Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates is right up there as contender for "Worst Of 2016" and I hope that anyone who has not seen this movie yet chooses to keep it that way. I am giving Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates the rating of a Kwik-E-Dog Special.
"Put down the Kwik-E-Dog!"
"I DON'T WANNA LIVE ANYMORE!"
*continuing arguing and screaming*
Well folks, there's my thoughts on this particular dumpster fire. Did this one fare better with you and what is your favorite comedy movie in the last ten years? As always, thank you for your time and if you like what you see here, you be sure to nudge that "Follow" button and stay Cynical!
-The Cynic
