‘Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates’ – RSVP to this laugh riot!

Let’s put this out there first, screwball ‘R’ rated comedies are really not for everyone. I’m ok with that, just like Romance or Action movies are not for everyone., in today’s movie going world you are apt to find a film in one of the local multiplexes that will fit your own particular tastes. I pretty much want to see everything, I have a very wide love for all things film.  That being said, ‘R’ rated comedies are tough, take anything Sacha Baron Cohen has made AFTER ‘Borat’ as an example; swearing, nudity and toilet jokes, really don’t make a film but that pretty much sums up every one of his films since ‘Borat’.  ‘R’ rated antics really don’t make a film funny unless you have the story AND characters to fill it out.  In ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’, the very talents and likeability of Zac Efron and Adam Devine as bumbling but loving brothers make the film work.

Dave (Zac Efron) and Mike (Adam Devine) Stangle are the type of brothers who constantly egg each other on; from one poor decision to the next their antics have hilariously ruined many a family outing.  Fed up with their hijinks, their parents Burt (the hilarious Stephen Root) and Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) demand the boys find respectable dates to bring to their sister’s wedding in Hawaii. The boys are not terrible people, just likable idiots who get out of control some time, so they embark to fulfill their parents’ wishes.  Of course they turn to ‘Craig’s List’, where everyone goes to find decent dates, and it causes a social media storm that overtakes the city. It eventually comes to the attention of two equally likeable but just as idiotic slacker girls in Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza from Parks & Rec fame) and Alice (Anna Kendrick of Pitch Perfect fame) who conspire to get the boys to take them to Hawaii by pretending to be ‘nice girls’ when in reality they are just as crazy as Dave & Mike.  The boys ask them to the wedding, once there, the girls turn out to be bigger disasters than the boys. And of course, hilarity ensues.

‘Dave & Mike ‘was written by Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien, the deviously funny minds behind the ‘Neighbors’ films and while those films were solidly frat humor, they balance ‘Dave & Mike’ well by adding the girls to balance Mike & Dave’s idiotic ways.  Director Jake Szymanski does a pretty decent job but seems to lose the pace a bit in the middle part of the film.  Much of that though is due to the fantastic chemistry that Efron & Devine share and a slight lack of chemistry in Plaza & Kendrick. When they are either in a scene together or with the girls, you’ll be belly laughing but when the girls are added to the mix things just seem to slow a bit. While Plaza & Kendrick are funny, they simply don’t have the comedic chops of Efron & Devine (I could have done with a little less of Devine’s signature high pitched whine). All that being said, Efron is building himself up as a solid comedic talent and is leaving his Disney roots firmly behind him.

‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’ is a solid B- that will leave you chuckling as you leave the theater. Get your plus one’s in to see this soon!