Movie Review – Mike and Dave need Wedding Dates

The premise of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is simple enough; Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave (Zac Efron) are two slacker brothers with an affinity for making every family gathering, event, and get together, an all-out rager. Insert fed up parents that stress that the boys will need to bring respectable wedding dates (presumably to keep them in check) to their sister’s wedding in Hawaii. I suppose the guys didn’t know any respectable or more than likely wanted to use a free trip to Hawaii to lure potential dates. Here is where hilarity ensues.

The brothers are completely codependent and do everything together with Mike leading the way and Dave always following. When they get the idea to put out an advertisement for polished dates for a Hawaii destination wedding, the response is overwhelming. Being that is the 21st century (this is based on a true story that took place in 2013) of course the idea of two good looking young men doing their own sort of The Bachelor competition on Craigslist to pick two women for all expenses paid trip to Hawaii, went viral. As the brothers interviewed women, it became clear that Dave (dreamboat, Zac Efron) was the guy most girls wanted. I loved the fact that they poked fun at the fact that Efron is really pretty (handsome pretty?).

Across town, two (also codependent) best friends are in need of a perfect vacation when they get wind of Mike and Dave’s little meet ups. Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) is crass and bossy but decides she’s going to clean up her look to become a classy girl so the men will pick her. Alice (Anna Kendrick) is reeling from a humiliating break (being left at the altar) and is way down in the dumps. When the ladies present themselves as…well, ladies, half of the fun of the film (spoiler alert: the girls go to Hawaii) is watching the guys realize that these girls aren’t the goody two-shoes they thought they were.

I found Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates to be funny, and sometimes my mouth hung agape, in a good way. At the same time, it felt like some of the jokes were just scratching at the surface. The two women, who could easily be classified as broads, were so bad ass. I would have loved more moments where the guys truly questioned what they had gotten themselves in to. Overall I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. It is exactly what it appears to be, a comedy that is somewhat predictable but fun nonetheless.

Aubrey really stole the show with her signature deadpan and Adam brought his neurotic little man syndrome-esque (not even sure he is short, but that’s the over compensating vibe he omits when he’s acting) so well. Their lines together were pretty funny and felt natural despite the abnormal things they were saying. I didn’t love Alice (Anna’s character), especially in comparison to Tatiana but coupled with Dave, I was very disinterested. There were dry moments but majority of the time, the theater erupted in laughter and gasps.

The real Stangle brothers never even brought girls they interviewed, they ended up taking some ladies they already knew and that’s just not as exciting. This makes you wonder how they got all of this fame in the first place. I have to hand it to them, these guys impressively managed to stretch their 15 minutes of fame in to a book deal and feature length film. The successful Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates film adaptation makes me wonder what other scripts could be whipped up out of ads on craigslist, not sure if that’s a black hole I’m willing to explore.