User reviews

OK, this is my second official review on IMDb for a film that's had a bit of a bashing by some, a little bit intimidating if I'll be honest. Part of me wants to agree with the guys and gals that have given this sub-5. It doesn't have the depth that some comedies have, not all the characters are likable, some of their arcs are frankly unbelievable, and I have no idea whether some of the scenes are even slightly possible. If yes, sign me up, you'll know which scenes if you watch the film!

However

Did I laugh my ass off for the best part of an hour and a half? Yes. Was I stone cold sober? No. Would I watch it again? Absolutely.

Effron doesn't display the awesome acting you might be expecting from some of his other films, but he's definitely funny (if a little crass and childish at times, but hey it's called "Mike and Dave need Wedding Dates, what are you expecting?!?? My regular movie buddy even turned to me and said so much).

There's romance, there's comedy and, kind of, adventure (not sure on the one film classifiers at IMDb). Focus on the comedy. Accept that this is childish. Pour yourself a glass of something yummy, and just enjoy it for its silliness. Simple fun to be enjoyed by anyone who can see past some of the stupid lines, nonsensical plot themes and obvious set ups. Still enjoyed it though!

They think they have just made them all better parties, but to their parents and to admittedly, reality, brothers Mike (Zac Efron) and Dave (Adam Devine) have only ruined all of the family events they've participated in for their wild party style. So when its Jaine's (Sugar Lyn Beard) turn to get married the family is taking no risks: Mike and Dave are to bring wedding dates to the wedding in order to be kept at bay. That's when Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) put on the façade of being nice and ordinary girls to score a free weekend in Hawaii after discovering an advert from the two brothers. Yet when the chaotic spirits of both pairs start to explode, an apparently normal weekend turns into a ludicrous series of events.

"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" has good and charismatic leads, with natural comedic timing and an appropriately funny cast built around them with a script that has some effortlessly funny gags working. Yet, a fair amount of laughs are not enough to surmount the film's lack of heart, which often transpires into both annoying and unmotivated sequences and humor which is close to being mean spirited.

What severely lacks from the film is a fresh and interesting comedic voice. As much as you feel the director's passion, I couldn't help but feel very cold about the style and visual choices the film makes. It is directed with almost no life, it doesn't feel alive and breathing, the shot choice is for the majority so basic it made my head ache at some point. There aren't any passages in the film where you feel inspired filmmaking and character or story being given a chance to flow. The editing is very mechanical and brings the film into feeling more like a series of gags, which might be occasionally good, but lack any kind of drive given the very predictable and clichéd script.

Still, there's no denying the talent almost everybody has for comedy and even when handed what for most is very average material they manage to elevate it and thanks to what is sure to be a lot of improvisation they make the scenes that work, work really well and transcend what are otherwise deeply problematic character development elements. Efron's career has lately been all about these R-rated comedies and I have to admit I am one who really enjoys his effort in these: he is a great screen presence and always brings a palpable irony to the scenes. Adam Devine at this point is an enigma for me, I have no idea where he'll go in the future, that is because he has some really borderline annoying stuff here, but I don't know if it's thanks to him or the gag in itself I was never brought to a breaking point. I enjoyed probably all of his beats and he had many different ones to bring alive, succeeding in all of that variety.

What is frustrating about the movie is how standard it feels and how much everything around it is striving to be better, but what we end up is this basic studio comedy that goes through every single beat we except and leaves the audience with little passion at all. The premise is right, the talent behind cast well, the script is trying to go to fresh places occasionally, but there is an incredible aura of average all around that simply flattens the film to the point of annoyance. Not to mention the ridiculous quantity of screeching women all over the place that had me almost covering my ears.

"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" is a film that delivers some good and at times great laughs thus succeeding a laugh prompter, yet a comedy film it lacks any depth of character or story to make it live any further than its closing credits unfortunately.

A great cast and amusing humour, but man does it take itself too seriously.

I think I can just about consider 'Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates' as a good film. The lead stars do respectable jobs and most of the comedy is funny, the fact that it tries to be heartfelt on too many occasions almost derails my feelings towards it though.

Zac Efron (Dave), Adam DeVine (Mike), Anna Kendrick (Alice) and Aubrey Plaza (Tatiana) all connect very well together, the chemistry in their respective cliques isn't always there but for the comical stuff they work.

Efron and Plaza would be my picks from the onscreen talent, especially Plaza who commits to the role nicely; despite an iffy accent. Elsewhere you have Sam Richardson (Eric), Lavell Crawford (Keith) and Stephen Root (Burt) appearing, they have relatively minor roles though it's cool to see them involved.

It's the attempted heartwarming story that lets this down, I guess it does leave with a positive message but none of it comes across in the film itself - I didn't connect with any of the characters on a proper level, Jake Szymanski & Co. should've just went for the 100% pure comedy. Being earnest is OK but you simply have to make it click, it doesn't here.

Thankfully, the satisfactory if sometimes hit-and-miss humour just about rescues this from soppy romcom territory.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates was humorous and quite entertaining. It has somewhat of a plot and was enjoyable. Some scenes could have been removed however. It was thankfully not too vulgar and relied on the performances of its four main cast members to bring it home. There was great chemistry between the four, some funny moments that most audiences should laugh at and slightly sentimental too. Audrey is a natural treasure but the weakest link was Anna Kendrick who was not as funny as she was annoying. You know this film is not in the running for any Oscars but it exists to entertain and achieved that. Glad I watched it.

I can't believe I'm about to write this line.

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES is the funniest movie I have seen this summer (so far).

There, I said it and I don't even feel like I need a shower.

I know - I'm surprised, too.  MIKE & DAVE is a pretty funny movie of the over-top, gross out type - think THE HANGOVER or NEIGHBORS,  

M&D tells the story of...well...Mike and Dave (Adam Devine and Zach Efron) who think they are just "great partiers" at the various weddings they go to - as seen through their eyes in the opening credits, only to discover "the rest of the story" from their parents (Stephanie Faracy and the great, underused Stephen Root) - they go out of control to disastrous results. The remedy?  Bring dates to their sister's destination wedding.

They go about it by putting an ad on Craigslist that goes viral.  Enter into it Alice and Tatiana (Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza) two ladies that party even harder than Mike and Dave who B.S. their way to the wedding pretending to be shy, demure and ladylike.  As you can imagine, chaos ensues.

The key to this type of movie is the performances of the leads and in these 4, they are in good hands.  Aubrey Plaza commands the first part of this movie as she is over the top and inappropriate from the start.  She had me laughing early and often.  Zach Efron joined in gamely and Adam Devine does what i think Adam Devine does, be the dimwit.  I gotta admit that this act wears thin on me, but is serviceable here.  Kendrick draws the short straw on this part of the movie as she seemed to be trying to hard in a part that was underwritten.

And then an interesting thing happens...as usually occurs in these types of films, they leads find their "hearts" and the shenanigans tone down.  When this happens, the relationship between Kendrick and Efron shine (I'd really love to see a movie with just these two) their heart and sincerity come to center stage and I really start to root for them.  Fortunately, for me at least, this means that Devine needed to tone down his act, which I was grateful for.  The unfortunate side effect is that Plaza had to tone hers down as well, and she became somewhat of a background player in the 2nd half of the film after carrying the first half.

Comedic movies often rise and fall on the performances of the supporting players, the can be fun (see THE HANGOVER) or they can be non-descript (see the recent GHOSTBUSTERS), fun works, non-descript doesn't.  This movie has fun supporting players starting with the afore-mentioned Root as Mike & Dave's father.   Add to that Alice Wetterlund's bi-sexual Cousin Terry, Mary Holland's uptight Maid of Honor Becky and Lavell Crawford's Best-Man Keith, they all have their moments to shine.  But, for the me, the real unexpected surprise was Sugar Lyn Beard as the Bride, Jeanie.  She was inappropriately hilarious in a role that could have been one note, but wasn't.  Only Sam Richardson's groom, Eric, was not fun, but he wasn't supposed to be - and he wasn't

Is this movie an Academy Award winner?  Well...no.  Is it a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a warm summer evening - heck, yes!  And isn't that what summer comedies should be?  I think so.

7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis)

Zac Efron has starred in no shortage of comedies lately. With Dirty Grandpa and the Bad Neighbours franchise under his belt, he is really starting to flex his comedic muscles (so to speak). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that he stars in this hilarious 'loosely based on true events' romp, Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates.

Zac plays Dave Stangle, a dim-witted lad who is in the alcohol business with his equally dim older brother Mike (played by Adam Devine, who you will remember from Pitch Perfect and Modern Family). Both are notorious for their destructive behaviour at family get-togethers so when they are confronted by their fed-up father to bring sensible dates to their sister's upcoming destination wedding, they are on a mission to find the perfect girls.

They end up with Alice and Tatiana (played by Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza respectively) who are far from wholesome but manage to convince the boys that they are. It's not until various unconventional situations occur that the ladies' true colours are revealed to the Stangle brothers who are now facing the dilemma of potentially ruining yet another family event.

This film is what you would expect – a lot of crude humour and ridiculousness so don't expect anything more. My biggest fear was that (like most movies of this nature) the best bits are all in the trailer, leaving the film empty of anything fresh however I can safely say there are plenty other laughs to be had throughout. No Oscar nominations here, but a fun and easy watch.

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Just watched this with my movie theatre-working friend-who had seen this before and enjoyed it-and his nephew. It's quite raunchy and has plenty of current pop culture references which I found quite funny. There's also some slapstick scenes that were also good for some laughs. There were also some touching ones. Zac Efron and Adam Devine and Audrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick fit their roles and do their stuff to mostly good effect. We're told this is based on a true story...sort of. No doubt much of what is on screen is exaggerated for comic effect. This is mainly just the kind of movie just meant to entertain though some lines do make one think of what one's destiny is. Overall, I very much enjoyed Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

'Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates' had some promise when the trailers first came out. I honestly believed this film would capture the tone of the first 'Hangover' movie, but something went wrong early on.

1. I know this film was based on true events, and I guarantee the true events would have been far more entertaining than the ones depicted in this film. For he most part, the movie has a strong opening where we see how these two brothers party, but we also witness the aftermath of their wild antics. Things move well enough till we get to the point where they actually end up on Hawaii. At this point, things take a tumble off a cliff.

2. Mike and Dave and played by Adam Devine and Zac Efron respectively. These two make an okay pair as brothers, but Adam Devine (especially) pushes the limit. Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick are probably the worst additions to the cast, cause they are terribly unfunny. You would assume both Devine and Plaza would bring a certain level of comedy and timing, but they unfortunately don't and the jokes are misplaced.

3. I'm not saying the movie is completely unfunny, but the most you get are a few chuckles here and there. Efron and Kendrick are better actors to star in a film like this, frankly this is below their standards. This should have been a direct to TV or DVD movie which featured some unknown/up-and-coming actors instead of bigger names filling the void. The side characters are annoying as f#%k, which in turn lowers the bar on the comedy.

The movie fails to redeem itself and it's only passable as maybe a rental. No one should waste their time and especially money on going to the cinema to watch this.

Looking through reviews I can see that I might be an exception, but I loved the movie. The story is about two brothers who need to find dates for their little sister's Hawaii wedding and make an ad. The two wild girls pretend to be good girls so they are chosen.

And it is hilarious all the way through. I was really laughing out loud through most of it. It is not some super clever comedy but it makes one laugh and this is what I need from this kind of movie. We live in a bit of depressing times so it is nice to see this kind of comedy just to relax and laugh.

The characters are all great. Fun people, made me remember the good times of living with my best friend and doing crazy things. And of course the fact that the actors are all talented comedians makes it even better.

There's a definite Apatow-type genre comedy making the rounds these days, consisting of semi-improvised dirty talk by young ne'er do wells who suddenly get super wholesome around act three. This is one of those, and it's a decent example of the breed — which is to say, not particularly intelligent and almost entirely dependent on (a) its cast and (b) the ability of said cast to pull off funny one liners.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates isn't a good movie, but it does get you from (a) to (b). (Like that?)

The titular Stangle brothers (Dave, played by Zac Efron, and Mike, Adam Devine) are thinly-sketched liquor salesmen with a serious failure to launch; while they bounce around all Animal House style, their parents lament the brothers' (utterly contrived) history of ruining family gatherings (by generally being manic and partying too hard). The parents implore the duo to stop chasing women and to find real, actual dates for their dear little sister's wedding.

Their Craigslist ad soon goes viral, landing them a TV spot and the attention of an even bigger pair of screw ups, freshly unemployed drunks Tatiana and Alice, played by Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick. The wily ladies hatch a scheme to clean themselves up, land the guys, and score a free trip to Hawai'i. Of course, they do.

The wedding gets royally boned, but that's not particularly funny or interesting. People also get sporadically wholesome, and ditto on that. These characters are thin and none has much of an arc save for bouncing around like pinballs between wholly artificial deep reveals. If it weren't for Plaza's foul-mouthed quips over sly, knowing glances, Kendrick's actually-kind-of-decent-after-all damaged damsel, Devine's babyface rants, and Efron's pure comedic charisma, this film would founder. But every now and then, the guys — and it is generally the guys, I think — hit one out of the park. There's some legitimately funny stuff in here. (It also has low points, like the cringe-worthy, 2010-era Adam Sandler-style cutting of the ATV crash scene. Feels like you're watching a cheap B-movie comedy.) Upshot, it's uneven.

The supporting cast is decent here. I doubt you'll rush to the marquee to see Stephen Root, but he's good as the frustrated dad; Sugar Lyn Beard (now there's a name) does more with the little sister bridal role than she probably needs to, hamming it up to good effect. I enjoyed the choice of Sam Richardson as her fiancé, and similarly that the filmmakers made precisely no mention of the fact that the pending marriage was interracial. (But before you ring the bell and declare social justice achieved, consider the underlying premise of women as simple arm candy to soothe and control hyperactive man-boys — and gaze also upon Alice Wetterlund's "Cousin Terry," a comic-relief predatory lesbian with a Tesla who certainly comes off like a stereotype, but to my knowledge, isn't — at least not yet.) Bell not rung.

I will say, for a movie about pretending to be someone you're not, this film graciously shortchanges the inevitable reveal. (You know, that moment when a protagonist has fibbed to get where they are, reaped the rewards, and then has to come clean, despite having developed real feelings in the interim… their poor counterpart is always dumbstruck and super hurt, whereas in real life they'd likely have smelled a rat and seen it all coming.) Reveals happen here, of course, but they don't seem to matter very much to anyone. Blink and you'll miss one of them. I like that.

So, overall? I loved the first 15 minutes of this movie. I loved various other minutes of it, but nowhere near all of them. It has a saggy and dumb middle and it misses its shot at greatness by a substantial margin. But sometimes you're in the market for a lousy, R-rated comedy with a few high notes, some good looking leads, improvised quips, and nice Hawaiian scenery. There are other, better entries in this slim little canon (Forgetting Sarah Marshall comes immediately to mind), but this one isn't all bad. Summer's here. See a movie.

Haus Verdict: About as smart as you thought it would be (not very), and sometimes a whole lot funnier. Efron really makes it for me. Is that weird?

(via Haus at www.parsinghaus.com)

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a good movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a terrific comedic cast. The highlight of the entire movie ls certainly the cast itself, the chemistry between Zac Efron and Adam Devine makes it all worthwhile, they are very convincing as brothers.

As well as that, their is a natural connection between the lead actresses, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza, who are fiercely entertaining as two rebellious girls, certainly different from Kendrick's previous roles.

The humour was, at times, tasteless. There is several innuendos, drug abuse and moments of sexual endeavours that simply came across as immature comedy that only young teenagers could really laugh at.

Some of the films major plot points are also very absurd. For something that is suppose to be loosely based on a true story there is not a whole lot of realism, such as one of the girls throwing herself in front of a vehicle to get a guy's attention and a particularly discomforting masseuse scene, it was ridiculously exaggerated at times. Funny and with a charming cast, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates may have its flaws but if you are looking for an enjoyable adult comedy, i's worth the watch.

Two brothers must search for dates for their sister's wedding in order to keep them under control, but the two girls they find have other ideas.

Best Performance: Adam Devine / Worst Performance: Alice Wetterlund

Some may know that I am a big fan of Zac Efron and his comedy line of movies and 'Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates' falls right along that line. This film had plenty of hilarious moments throughout and had me genuinely entertained with the amount of over-the-top humor it presented. On top of the moments, Anna Kendrick, Zac Efron, Adam Devine, and Aubrey Plaza did a great job every moment they were on screen, bringing the laughs every chance they could. I have been waiting to see Anna Kendrick let loose on screen for a while and with this film and also 'Get A Job', it was awesome to finally see that. Adam Devine is naturally ridiculous with every on-screen shot and never fails to get a laugh out of a crowd and even his co-stars (See gag reel at the end of the film). Although hilarious, an avid movie lover will notice the pointless and utterly ridiculous plot and sometimes way over-the-top antics. Regardless, this is just another raunchy comedy fit for mindless entertainment. I am a fan and if you like movies like 'Neighbors' or 'Dirty Grandpa', it will be one you will be a fan of too.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is your typical raunchy summer comedy. The movie follows two wedding crasher like brothers that are given to order to bring respectable dates to there sister's wedding. In the typical comedy way, two not so respectable girls answer the call and pose as the respectable girls they need to be all in order to get a free holiday.

Like most comedies, I often try to come into them with a low expectation. This was, if it was a decent laugh, then I'm not going to be disappointed. If it ends up being an all time classic comedy, even better. If you are planning to see this movie, I suggest to go in with these low expectations. I say this not because it is an awful movie in anyway, but because I it serves as a great TV watch. In the end, the focus of comedies is to make you laugh and at no point during this film did I feel that this movie was failing at this job.

I thought the chemistry between the main four characters were fantastic. While there wasn't many situation where the four shared to focus at the same time, I thought the combinations of DeVine and Efron as brother, Kendrick and Plaza as best friends, and Efron and Kendrick and Plaza and DeVine as their paired romantic interests all worked really well. I thought from a cast perspective they all bounced off each other really nicely and created a real natural flow.

The only downside I really had with the cast was DeVine. While I thought he worked really well in his pair ups, I just felt that as far as quality, his behind with the others such as Efron and Kendrick playing stand out roles.

For me, DeVine shares a problem I also have with Melissa McCarthy in that I think in a supporting comedic role they are fantastic but when it comes to stepping up into that main role where they have to touch on more than one emotion they struggle a bit. This can really be seen in a scene where both Efron and DeVine's characters are upset and Efron pulls a real cry and DeVine just scrunches up his face. While it was pretty funny, it is scenes like that that shows he lacks that extra dimension. I felt like they could have easily had a few really emotional scenes throughout this film but with someone like DeVine, they can't tone it back and play a serious scene.

Overall, this was a nice easy laugh. I don't think you have to be into the complete adult humour to enjoy but you have to be matured enough to see the funny side of some of the jokes.

7/10

I like the 4 actors in the leading roles, and that was why I went to watch this, even though I suspected it would be bad.

And yeah, it was bad. Not only the plot overall, where literally nothing happened. At all. Basically, every scene, and almost every line of dialogue was stupid and/or weird (and not the funny kind of weird). IMDb has it classified as "Adventure, Comedy, Romance", but I saw no adventure at all, and barely any romance; and the comedy in it was like... well, a parody of a parody, or something like that. And believe me, I am the type of person, who actually loves the "silly and cute" type of comedies (for which I am often labeled as "shallow"). But this was too silly even for my tastes. Most of the time it was just stupid, rather than silly. And even the moments that were supposed to be cute had enough cringe worthy elements in them, that the fun and that "aww" feeling in them was ruined. And I'm not a prude. I have laughed at this kind of humor before, and have had lots of fun watching movies that use it. But it has to be done well. Here, it wasn't. The writers didn't do a good job, period. Not even a decent job. It made those 4 actors look bad and they (mostly) don't deserve it. I know they're better than that.

....even after the 4th time ,actually its never been funnier...this is my type of humour and zac efron proved once again that hes really great at comedy just as aubrey plaza.....lots of inside jokes for movie lovers,a great setting and as mentioned before just my type of humour i will definetely watch this a 5th time some day

Well if I was Anna Kendrick I would fire my agent.... preferably out of a cannon.

I really think this film was greenlit solely on an idea and without a script which was made up as the film went along.

Mike (Adam Devine) and his younger brother Dave (Zac Efron) are always causing chaos and embarrass their parents. So they are asked by their parents to bring dates for their sister's wedding in Hawaii which means they will behave themselves. I have no idea why the parents never thought that they might bring two chaotic idiots.

This is exactly what happens. After an internet search they meet Tatiana (Audrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) who are two wild party girls who pretend to be respectable and responsible in order to be their wedding dates in Hawaii where they plan to cut loose.

The film is just badly structured, it wants to be a bad taste, high jinks film like Neighbours or The Hangover but the script is poor, even boring with a few key set pieces such as the quad bike scene but the actors have to resort to silliness just to pad out the film.

There are a few laughs to be had but the film is dreadful, interminable, inconsistent in pace and tone. At least the actors got a trip in Hawaii out of it.

Based on the poor reviews the movie had on Xfinity, I had pretty low expectations going in - figured it would be crude, unfunny, but sort of a light way to pass an hour and a half. Boy was I wrong. It was hysterical! From beginning to end, I laughed hysterically. I loved the writing, the jokes and the overall intelligence behind the plot.

The basic premise is that these two brothers are screwups, and their father is making them calm down and get dates so they don't mess up their sister's wedding. But unfortunately...that plan goes way wrong when the girls they bring are even wilder, and crazier, than them.

So funny, really lightened up the weekend. Highly recommended.