Knee-jerk review: "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates"

1. Someone we know who works in Hollywood as a studio marketing executive often reminds us that if the trailer (or TV spot) for a comedy isn't funny, be wary.  The producers should be putting the funny stuff - assuming they have funny stuff and not every comedy does - in the advertising.  We found the trailer for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates to be utterly hilarious.  So we cashed in a  grandparent babysitting chit to go see it.
2. We laughed a lot.  Some funny bits, for sure.  Like the ATV accident, the "happy ending"massage , the sauna.
3. But was it a good movie?  Maybe not so much.  It's in the R-rated raunchy vein of Wedding Crashers or Superbad or Neighbors.  But it's not nearly as clever or memorable as those movies.  Although we must give it some credit for trying to make the female characters act just as crude and horrible as the male characters.
4. Good performances, yes.  Adam Devine is always funny.  And Audrey Plaza predictably does that quirky snarky thing she does.  But we were surprised how good Anna Kendrick was playing a dimwit.
5. That said, we get the feeling everyone involved thought everything was a little more hilarious than it actually turned out to be.
6. Pretty unimaginative title, too.
7. Selling liquor to hip bars in New York City.  Another of those phony, only-in-movies jobs that 20somethings often have.  And you should see the groovy, giant apartment Mike and Dave share.  We all could use a Hollywood production designer to decorate our homes.
8. We understand now why the set-up (two screwballs are forced by their family to bring dates to a Hawaii family wedding so they won't ruin everything; their hunt for dates goes viral; two screwball girls decide to play "nice girls" to get a free vacation) is so forced and strained - it's supposedly based on a true story.  Seems like there would be an easier way to get the two couples together since that's where the story really takes off.
9. A perfectly placed f-bomb can be hilarious.  But less is more.  This is one of those movies where every other word is the f-bomb.  It's too much.  You become so numb that the word loses all meaning.  Or is that the point?  (And does it make us sound old and cranky to make this complaint in the first place?  Probably.)

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