‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’ review: “A fun-filled comedy that’s great for the summer crowd”

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates review: An outlandish comedy headed up by power quartet Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza and Adam Devine.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates review by Kat Hughes, August 2016.

Zac Efron shot to fame in the High School Musical franchise, a film series aimed squarely at the tween market. His latest venture Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is definitely not one for the tweens, being much more adult in content. Joining Efron is his Dirty Grandpa co-star Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, and Kendrick’s Pitch Perfect co-star, Adam Devine. Whist the casting choices might feel a little like seven degrees of separation, the young cast work well together.

Efron stars as Dave, a lost twenty-something who has spent his life being smothered by his older brother Mike (Devine). The brothers are inseparable and are well known to their family for the troublesome escapades that they get up to at family events. In the run-up to their sister’s wedding the duo find themselves the recipients of an intervention of sorts wherein they are offered an ultimatum – get sensible dates for the wedding or don’t turn up. The pair then begin their search for the perfect dates, enter Tatiana (Plaza) and Alice (Kendrick).

Alice and Tatiana are party girls who find themselves broke after their binge drinking results in them losing their latest job. In an attempt to break out of their rut, Tatiana devises an idea to secure themselves as Mike and Dave’s dates. They just have to make themselves presentable. Inevitably the foursome end up at the wedding and comedy ensues as the girls must pretend to be the respectable young women that they have marketed themselves as.

The plot is as generic as it sounds, but Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates manages to hold the viewers attention and has some great jokes. It starts off strong; the first half hour or so is heavy on the laughs. The pace drops off however, once we get to Hawaii, the film switching tact, playing for the long punch-lines and drawn-out set pieces instead. The further out from the opening credits the crasser the humour becomes and it walks the boundaries of taste in several moments.

The characters could do with more development, none feel fully formed. Plaza feels like she’s repeating the same character that she played in Dirty Grandpa, only ever so slightly less slutty. Devine gets the worst of it though as Mike is really only one note, and that’s loud, crass and pretty irritating. On the flip side Efron and Kendrick are both great and inject some much needed warmth to proceedings. They still have an edge but they’re the more sensible half of each duo. It’s nice to see Kendrick shed a little of her good-girl image.

American Pie 2 collides with Wedding Crashers, the result is Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. A fun-filled comedy that’s great for the summer crowd.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates review by Kat Hughes, August 2016

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates will open in cinemas on August 10th, 2016.