Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

"They needed hot dates. They got hot messes."

Filmology Rating: 2.5 out of 4

Mike and Dave are easy going brothers that have a tendency to get out of control during family gatherings. So, when it comes to their little sister’s wedding, the family says they need to bring respectable women to make sure that they stay in line during the week of wedding fun in Hawaii. Reluctantly they agree and understand so they place an ad on Craigslist to try and find some “nice girls”. Tatiana and Alice, two charming and seemingly nice girls run into them “accidently” and Mike and Dave decide to take them. However, these girls turn out to be not so “nice” and well behaved as previously thought.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates was one of the movies that I was most looked forward to out of the summer selection. It not only looked really funny from the previews, but it also had a talented cast led by Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick, and Aubrey Plaza, all of whom I am big fans of. It also had the writers who brought us Neighbors, Neighbors: Sorority Rising and Funny People, two out of the three I really enjoyed. All of this added up to some big expectations! Sadly, I don't think it reached the level that I had hoped for but overall it was still enjoyable.

While this movie isn’t by any means the funniest movie of all time, it will have you bursting out laughing at many times. Specifically the comedic chemistry between Efron and DeVine was excellent. These two guys acted like real brothers and sold it incredibly well. Together, they made for some hilarious moments and had some great dialogue and banter between them. Efron and DeVine carried the film and it really showed. Now it is on the other spectrum that I felt the movie struggled. As much as I love Plaza and Kendrick…… they were tough to like. It takes a long time for their characters to gain any traction and actually make you like them. To be quite honest, they were really annoying at first to the point that they were off-putting. However, since Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is based off a true story, this is how the girls really were so you do have to give them some credit. For me however, it was almost too much and should have been toned down. I did not care for them at all until the end when they start to act like real people. Until then they just felt like characters. I know they are supposed to be playing these real life girls who are shallow and annoying but I feel like the writing was just poor for them early on which is my next biggest complaint.

Now the writing and script for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates were not the best that Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O'Brien have done. Now there were a lot of funny parts and clever dialogue throughout but there was also a lot of crap as well. A joke would be said that didn’t connect and then the writers kept trying to make it work when it really never did. The great thing about the first Neighbors movie is that it throws a lot of jokes at you and some jokes missed. That’s ok! It’s a comedy movie and not all jokes hit everyone the same way and are really funny to everyone. But that movie moved on and went to the next joke that did work and was funny. I had a few big flaws with the second film Sorority Rising and that was one of them. This I felt suffered from the same thing. They kept trying to funny and as a result, they weren't funny a lot of the times. It felt like they were trying too hard at times.

Overall, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates would be a good buddy movie to see with some friends to just relax and have a few laughs. This movie really isn’t anything more than that.

Rating: Rent It 

-Nick