Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates Is A Vacation Away From The Average Comedy
At times ‘Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates‘ can be a bit rough around the edges. Something about that mixed with the already awkward comedic style adds to the charm of the film. Director Jake Szymanski is on to something with this surprisingly unique summer comedy. This is even “based on a true story“.
Pairing together Zac Efron with Adam Devine was a great choice but Anna Kendrick & Aubrey Plaza shine together. The girls bounce jokes off each other with ease, forcing the boys to keep up with them. Keeping up with them is no problem for Devine as he eats up the material. His work on Comedy Central’s ‘Workaholics‘ is notable but seeing him star in a feature film makes his future even brighter.
Breaking Down The Film:
While the story is simple enough, something about ‘Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates‘ makes it hard to compare to another film. At times it is raunchy like an ‘American Pie‘ or dives into moments of a slapstick comedy but it still keeps this unique comedic tone. We start off with a montage opening credits of Mike and Dave’s previous fun times. Immediately, we cut to their parent’s telling them to clean up their act. They show the aftermath of the “fun” moments we saw in the montage; slightly breaking the fourth wall and showing how insane these two guys are.
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The film, while touching on comedy tropes, still found a way to not rely on tired jokes. One of the most notable instances being the fact they avoided any real racial jokes toward the relationship between Mike and Dave’s sister and her black fiancee. Refreshing because lazy bits like that have been used in comedy films for decades. Instead, they found other ways to “shock the audience” like a massage scene that made one critic in my screening cover their eyes in modesty.
“TWO HANDS! PUSHING THE POP! PUSHING THE POP!”
–Mike Strangle (Adam Devine)
In a film about the titular Mike (Adam Devine) & Dave (Zac Efron), it’s a surprise to see how much they allowed the dynamic duo of Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) to steal the show. Plaza is the one who caught my eye the most; she fits perfectly into this awkward universe. Watching her verbal tease and abuse Devine’s Mike was hilarious. I’m so glad those two were paired as their drastically different acting styles blended well together.
Not many complaints for the film other than some minor filmmaking issues. Obvious ADR voice-over work and some over-the-shoulder shots looking disjointed to their wide shot counterpart were some of the only noteworthy problem. With as wildly fun as this film was, those fixable critiques wouldn’t be noticeable to an average cinema-goer. The good surely does outweigh any of the bad.
‘Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates‘ hits theaters July 8th, 2016!
