Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (15.)
Directed by Jake Szymanski.
Starring Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, Aubrey Plaza, Sugar Lyn Beard and Stephen Root. 98 mins
Two bad girls pretend to be good girls to get a free holiday in Hawaii as the respectable wedding dates of two brothers, but once they get there can't keep the pretense up. Its trailer sets it up as bawdy, charmless, lowest common denominator gag fest but the film sabotages itself by being consistently funny and surprisingly entertaining.
Mikendave is one of those films where everybody is encouraged to improvise and spitball, and try to push off into wild, off beat territory. What you gain in terms of big laughs you lose in cohesion and character consistency. The film makes an attribute of putting square pegs in round holes and making it work. Nobody really seems right for their role but there is enough chemistry to make it work. The film reunites Kendrick and Devine from the Pitch Perfect films, and Efron and Plaza who both helped De Niro to make a fool of himself in Dirty Grandpa. But then, having got them back together, it pairs them off with the other one.
Devine is there to be the primary comedy chaos generator, and the purveyor of wild and inappropriate lines. He's funny enough but all his comic timing and persona are an exact replica of Jack Black's. In Dirty Grandpa Aubrey Plaza made an heroically dignified and endearing effort at playing the spectacularly undignified role of the young hottie who lusts after De Niro. Here, given the much less challenging role of rejecting Devine's advances, she isn't nearly as effective. Like most contemporary comedies it's about talented, basically decent people trying to find some humanity and levity in the dick jokes, drug references and general hashtwattery of modern culture. You may laugh uproariously, but you won't respect them in the morning.
Directed by Jake Szymanski.
Starring Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, Aubrey Plaza, Sugar Lyn Beard and Stephen Root. 98 mins
Two bad girls pretend to be good girls to get a free holiday in Hawaii as the respectable wedding dates of two brothers, but once they get there can't keep the pretense up. Its trailer sets it up as bawdy, charmless, lowest common denominator gag fest but the film sabotages itself by being consistently funny and surprisingly entertaining.
Mikendave is one of those films where everybody is encouraged to improvise and spitball, and try to push off into wild, off beat territory. What you gain in terms of big laughs you lose in cohesion and character consistency. The film makes an attribute of putting square pegs in round holes and making it work. Nobody really seems right for their role but there is enough chemistry to make it work. The film reunites Kendrick and Devine from the Pitch Perfect films, and Efron and Plaza who both helped De Niro to make a fool of himself in Dirty Grandpa. But then, having got them back together, it pairs them off with the other one.
Devine is there to be the primary comedy chaos generator, and the purveyor of wild and inappropriate lines. He's funny enough but all his comic timing and persona are an exact replica of Jack Black's. In Dirty Grandpa Aubrey Plaza made an heroically dignified and endearing effort at playing the spectacularly undignified role of the young hottie who lusts after De Niro. Here, given the much less challenging role of rejecting Devine's advances, she isn't nearly as effective. Like most contemporary comedies it's about talented, basically decent people trying to find some humanity and levity in the dick jokes, drug references and general hashtwattery of modern culture. You may laugh uproariously, but you won't respect them in the morning.
