Review: Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates

Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates
Cert: 15 / 98 mins / Dir. Jake Szymanski / Trailer



In an unforeseen move, a gap in the blockbuster schedule appears to have brought us exactly the kind of filler usually reserved for the graveyard-shifts in March and October. No matter, this film's set on a sunny tropical island, and it is currently Summer round my way, so break out the Hawaiian shirts and Margaritas, it's time to go and be obnoxious at somebody's wedding!

Yes, Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates*¹ follows the titular brothers, notorious within their family circle for ruining parties and get-togethers, as they're ordered by their parents to find dates for their younger sister's wedding in the hopes that this will calm them down and avoid embarrassment. After they advertise their requirements on Craigslist - including the free holiday to Hawaii where the wedding is to be held - they end up attracting the kind of guests who are even more badly behaved than they are. And thus the comedy arises…

When the film is running through its genre-standard gags and set-pieces (booze, slapstick and dick-jokes), it's amusing enough. However, the moments of ill-judged (and ill-executed) characterisation are where the cracks really start to appear. The harder the film tries - whether it's raising the gross-out stakes or being brazenly, self-indulgently sappy - the closer it edges to failure. And while Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Adam Devine and Zac Effron are all likeable screen-presences, they do little to gel together and are largely on autopilot here. Kendrick and Plaza come out of the whole thing better than their male counterparts (even though the former looks visibly out of her depth on several occasions), but there's the feeling throughout that the principal quartet are capable of so much better.

The main story's Hawaii setting underlines that this is very much the white-trash cousin of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and other than the apparently quasi-biographical aspect, this movie could have been made at any point in the last 30 years, with any cast, and had ultimately the same effect. This will be perfectly fine for a night in with some friends, but it's nothing you probably haven't seen elsewhere. As provocative as Mike And Dave tries to be, it's ultimately harmless, if potty-mouthed, fluff.

Ninety-eight minutes of drunken shouting and embarrassment. Generally speaking I identified with that, but I'm deducting a point for the mortifying finale-performance of This Is How We Do It and for the closing credits gag-reel of improvised out-takes, each one succinctly demonstrating why it didn't make the final edit.

I dread to think what didn't make the gag-reel…

The worst excesses of the Hangover trilogy.



If you're with friends and you're going to have a few drinks before or after, sure.
Then again, you could wait three months and have just as enjoyable time doing that at home.



Not as much as it thinks it does.



No.



Probably not.



No, but that eagie-screech is in there.



Level 2: This movie stars Adam Devine, who provided voice-work for Ice Age: Collision Course alongside Simon 'Dengar/Plutt' Pegg.




*¹ And fair fucking play to the powers-that-be for naming this film "Mike And Dave…" rather than "Mike & Dave…". Punctuation breaks hashtags, and movie-titles featuring ampersands are a recurring bugbear of mine. At least this way people can tweet about the film properly. Yes, it's the little things that make me happy.


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Mortdecai

Mortdecai
Cert: 12A / 107 mins / Dir. David Koepp / Trailer



You see, the thing is right, it's not that I dislike Johnny Depp. There's a list (a short list, but a list) of performers who aggravate me every time they face towards a camera, but Johnny's not on it. I just can't get enthusiastic about his films as I find him to be a very lazy performer, both in terms of his tried and tested array of facial expressions, and the roles he chooses to utilise them in. I'm sure he's lovely, but he's like the guy at the party with the acoustic guitar who only knows one song*¹.

Anyway, the Enforced British Zaniness of Mortdecai rumbles its way onto our screens early in 2015, because the world apparently couldn't wait for Austin Powers 4. The story (based around one of a set of popular vintage novels) has a 1960s art-heist ethos, but a present day setting complete with high-action and stylised transitions. These don't sit nearly as well together as director David Koepp would have liked, I fear, and the result is a bit of a mess (in much the same way as Gambit struggled to find the same balance). It's not that the film isn't frequently amusing, but it's trying way too hard to be Irreverent™, and I'm left with the feeling that it's doing a massive disservice to a much loved series of books.

Whether it's the moustache-jokes which wear thin after about six minutes but still keep arriving like London buses, or the work of a scriptwriter who seems to have mistaken "balls" as the punchline to a joke (twice), Mortdecai lacks the precision and restraint to be a really effective comedy. That said, even I have to admit that Paul Bettany vomiting onto a windscreen during a car-chase is a highlight. Particularly since Bettany seems to be the only actor employing any level of actual deadpan.

In fairness to the cast though, when your central characters are played by two Americans and a Scotsman, all pulling off flawless Queen's English accents, that is an achievement worth showing off. I only wish the makers had spent more time on the screenplay than they did on the casting.

Warning: Features Paul Whitehouse doing comedy cross-eyes and needlessly resurrecting the comedic corpse of Stavros. It's not unfair to say that with Whitehouse's presence and the plot revolving around theft from stately homes, the film feels a bit like an extended Aviva advert.

Oh, and is Olivia Munn a real person, then? I'd only heard of her and thought she was a fictional character like Nicki Minaj.

Over-written and over-acted, Mortdecai is a casually enjoyable enough art-heist yarn, but this modern impressionist seems to believe it's an old master.

Do you see what I did, there?
I did An Art Joke™.
That's one more than the film does.

I don't think it is, in all honesty.



Unless you're a Depp/Bettany fan, you could probably get away with renting this one.



I'm afraid not (although again, Bettany's comedy-chops are great here).



Not even close.



Nah.



I didn't hear one.



Why, Mortdecai stars Ewan McGregor of course, the Prequel-era Obi-Wan Kenobi.







*¹ And no, that's not me. I know loads of songs, although they do all tend to use the same chords. That's not the same thing. No, you shut up.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.