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Critics Consensus: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates benefits from the screwball premise and the efforts of a game cast, even if the sporadically hilarious results don't quite live up to either.
Critic Consensus: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates benefits from the screwball premise and the efforts of a game cast, even if the sporadically hilarious results don't quite live up to either.
All Critics (164) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (59) | Rotten (105)
Every so often in comedy, the filmmakers will get into a creative groove in which every scene is imaginative, almost unhinged and completely successful. This happens in Mike and Dave.
It's like riding a roller coaster fueled by Red Bull and grain alcohol: kind of gross but pretty fun, too.
A fine cast goes to waste in this risk-free and cliché-riddled comedy, loosely based on a true story.
has the jumpy exuberance of a puppy that won't stop humping your leg. It's a bummer that the jokes don't land often enough.
There's nothing clever here. The filmmakers believe that broad, obvious gags, pratfalls, and profanity-laced tirades are inherently funny. They're not.
Doesn't even convincingly craft its own internal reality. There are no rules or character motivations, words come out of Zac Efron's mouth when it isn't moving, and Anna Kendrick's wig changes color seemingly at random.
It's lewd and loud, laden with cursewords, packed with sexual contentall in all, a good time.
A relentless parade of raucous gags, each attempting to up-the-stakes in shock-value, but each falling completely flat and winding up mercifully unfunny.
Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick truly stole the show with their bad girl jokes and antics.
One could do worse than sit through an agreeable enough dumb comedy with such talented actors.
"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" also needs a lot of other things such as a better screenplay, better jokes, better editing, and a better movie.
This is not to say that Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is completely void of humor, but overall its single-dimensional characters and clunky plot leave you with nothing to hold on to after the film is over.
Lots of energy and slapdash humor nearly disguise the see-through plot and the hit or miss nature of the proceedings. "Maybe this'll be one of those that get better with age," I thought.
Super Reviewer
Mike and Dave need better roles. DeVine and Plaza were the only players even remotely humorous and the script was more formulaic than a trigonometry midterm exam. Lighting and sound were good but there was nothing particularly funny or interesting about this film to make it anything more than marginally amusing.
Zac Efron and Adam Devine play hysterical party-hardy brothers who always take family functions one step too far. When their parents insist they bring nice girls as dates to their sister's wedding, they get more than they bargained for in DGAF Tatiana and stoner Alice. Aubrey Plaza is hot and mean, and that diddlin' Cousin Terry fiasco with subsequent smartphone gestures bit is subversively hilarious. Alice Wetterlund as aforementioned Cousin Terry is an awesome androgynous fashionplate. I wasn't quite sure what Anna Kendrick was trying to play at first: dumb, stoned, or heartbroken. Her blossoming relationship with Dave is nice, but I guess I just didn't connect with her story or performance. Sugar Lyn Beard (yep) really steals the show as the little sister Jeanie: getting pummeled in the face by an ATV tire; being repeatedly butt-humped (runner up: rump-slapped) to ecstasy by oiled and ponytailed Kumail Nanjiani; tripping on actual ecstasy and unleashing that merkin. Props, girl.
Loose in narrative and derivative in nature, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a raunchy comedy that entertains thanks to the comedy interplay of its four leads. The "inspired by a true story" tale follows two rowdy screw-up bros, Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron), are given an ultimatum by their frustrated family: bring dates to their little sister's wedding in Hawaii or don't come at all. The guys' online ad goes viral and two down-on-their-luck party girls, Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza), answer the call, posing as "nice girls" for a free tropical vacation. What follows is a comically episodic series of hit-or-miss set pieces, and yet what really shines is the energy between the foursome and the unexpected jokes. Kendrick and Efron, playing a very similar part from Neighbors, are positioned as more straight foils to the loud, obnoxious Plaza and Devine, though every member gets a chance to shine. Special mention must go to actress Sugar Lynn Beard, as the much beset bride, and her deft physical comedy skills. Mike and Dave is a movie that had me laughing fairly consistently and was mellow enough not to grate when it dipped into its fleeting dramatic portions. There are plenty of Neighbors vibes with the movie, not just from Efron's efforts but also because this movie shares the same writers. It's not quite as well developed nor are the characters as fleshed out. I'd rate Mike and Dave a small notch below Neighbors 2; it's fun and consistently funny though hardly memorable. Something I found interesting, and I may be alone in the universe, is that all of the female nudity in Mike and Dave is played for laughs instead of titillation. Usually male nudity is the one played for laughs and discomfort. If this one small step toward progress, let he acceptably lowbrow Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates exist as a footnote of history. Nate's Grade: B
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