K-SCORE: 14
Director: Jake Szymanski
Writer: Andrew J. Cohen, Brendan O’Brien
Starring: Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Stephen Root, Sugar Lyn Beard
Spoiler Alert: They get wedding dates.
“quality of what spreads is of no bearing on the rate of infection”
Apparently this is based on a true story. Two idiot brothers posted a Craigslist ad for wedding dates that went viral. We live in a society where having something “go viral” is the best thing that can happen to you, but such viruses are unpredictable and the quality of what spreads is of no bearing on the rate of infection. No producer looked at this and said, “There’s not enough of a story in this premise to generate an actual movie.” They just looked at it and said, “If this went viral, a movie version will probably attract enough people to the theaters to recoup the expenses.” And then a bunch of publicists for famous actors and actresses sold the idea to their clients by saying they’ve set the film in Hawaii so they’ll basically get to be on vacation in paradise while making the movie. The director they tied to the project was drawn in for the same reason and the writers took the gig because they heard that the comedians they got to star in the film are known for excessive improvisation so they won’t actually have to write any lines of dialogue, but rather a collection of scene ideas that will be shot in a random order. And it’s not like they have to work with a premise of any significance as the entirety of the conflict is encapsulated by the title, which is ripped off the book that was written by the real life Craigslist ad brothers and truncated from Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: and a Thousand Cocktails to the version you see at the top of the screen. And I want to spend my time writing about how bad the film was, but I just can’t get over that the book was published with a fucking typo in the fucking title! What’s with that colon after “Dates?” Does any of this formula for entertainment creation sound like its good for the audience, the paying customers supporting the industry? It absolutely does not.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is cringe-worthy most of the time. These two brothers find their wedding dates rather quickly, and then they don’t need wedding dates anymore and there’s nothing to keep the movie going, so they just film a bunch of random stuff and mash it together awkwardly. Oddly enough, the reason behind the conflict that they need wedding dates doesn’t make sense. It’s a shot missed at point-blank range. They need wedding dates because they are too rowdy at parties and they haven’t had dates at those parties in the past? Wha? This is a comedy that made me laugh exactly once, which, astonishingly, is not the worst rate I’ve encountered in a film - not even close really. And at least I was able to maintain the strength of will not to mute, fast-forward, or bury my head in my hands in almost all the scenes. The song they perform at the end was too much for me. Being able to guess at the motivations of everyone involved in the filmmaking somehow makes me feel really bad though because the most irrational person involved is me for turning it on and letting it run from the opening scene with the tequila shot to the closing scene where Aubrey Plaza fucks Adam DeVine as if she’s the one with the dick.