Movie Review: 20th Century Fox's Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates

Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates
Release: July 8, 2016
MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Comedy
Director: Jake Szymanski
Written by: Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien
Produced by: Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Jonathan Levine
Cast: Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, Aubrey Plaza, Stephen Root 

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Hard-partying brothers Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) place an online ad to find the perfect dates (Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza) for their sister's Hawaiian wedding. Hoping for a wild getaway, the boys instead find themselves outsmarted and out-partied by the uncontrollable duo.

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We are in the throes of the Summer blockbuster season for movies! Studios are putting out the best of the best in hopes of striking box office gold. The casts get better and the scripts get bigger. The expectations for movies released during the Summer are almost unrealistic. Sadly, this week's film, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, falls short. 

I know you might be thinking you can't believe I dislike ANOTHER movie. It's not that I dislike the movies, it's just there are very few worthwhile movies out there. This one has its moments, but I didn't care for a lot of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

I disliked the characters. Mike, Dave, Alice, and Tatiana are all annoying cardboard cutouts of fake people.  I understand that everything gets exaggerated on a movie screen, but no one acts the way that these characters acted. In one scene, for example, Alice has a conversation with a Blow Pop stuck to her hair. People don't do that. At first, I laughed along, but the laughter didn't last long. The longer the movie went, the less I laughed. 

I wasn't crazy about the cast. Other that Zac Efron, who has developed real comedic ability, the rest of the cast disappointed.  Anna Kendrick should not have been cast in this role.  I like her well enough in other roles, but her timing was off on this and she didn’t have appropriate reactions to the actions of the rest of the cast. I have  yet to like Adam DeVine or Aubrey Plaza in any movie.  They didn’t add anything to this one.

Loud and funny are not the same thing.  Efron is funny.  DeVine is loud.  The scenes were Devine lead cannot be mistaken for funny.  It seemed to me that DeVine knew he was second fiddle to Efron, so he upped his loudness level to compensate.  The resulting movie ended up being more loud than funny, and I went to the theater looking for funny.  Funny is what was advertised, but not always delivered.

Now, there are some genuinely hilarious scenes in the movie.  That one scene is the spa, I will be laughing at for weeks to come.  And some of the bothers’ antics worked well, too.  Efron and DeVine played well on camera together.  So, it isn’t all bad.  If you’re willing to sit though some eye rolls, you will eventually get a good laugh. 

Some of the gags in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates are water cooler worthy.  After opening weekend, people will definitely be talking about this one.  I didn’t care for it much, but you might like this better than I did.  If you want to be in on the know, and you’re willing to invest some time between laughs, you can catch Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates now playing.