Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates Movie Review: Vulgar, Crass, Dumb & Extremely Silly

'MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES' is strictly for those who go for raunchy sex comedies that are full of obscene language, outrageous profanity, gratuitous frontal nudity and shameless, tasteless jokes. If you like the vulgar and cringe-inducing hilarity of "American Pie", "The Hangover" and "Porky's" (all blockbusters to prove there's a huge market for this kind of comedy), then you'd enjoy "Mike and Dave", which is said to be based on a true story. Since comedies about weddings are hits, like "Bridesmaids", "The Hangover" franchise, "Wedding Crashers", this one also involves a wedding.

Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave Stangle (Zac Efron) are brothers who are notorious for ruining their family events because of their brainless disastrous shenanigans. For the wedding of their sister Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) to be held in Hawaii, their parents require them to bring nice girls as wedding dates, in the hope that these girls would help curb their destructive tendencies and control any irresponsible behavior that might help wreck the wedding.

They interview various girls but no one satisfied them, until they meet two trashy girls who prove to be their match in messing things up. Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza of "The To Do List") is the trashier of the two. Alice (Anna Kendrick) is still reeling after her fiance dumped her on their wedding day right in front of the altar saying "I don't" instead of the expected "I do".

The duo sees the brothers conducting their search for wedding dates on a TV talk show and they then cook up a plan to meet the guys "by accident" in front of a bar. You'd think that sparks would fly when they meet Mike and Dave as they are their female counterparts but, sorry, nothing of the sort happens. We're supposed to find these characters quite lovable but the truth is they're all reprehensible idiots. The girls present a fake version of themselves and it works. But once they get to Hawaii for the wedding, their true horrible nature comes into the surface.

They all do all the craziest, most repulsive things, but in the end, they suddenly become soft, tone down their brash acts and become more mature grown ups. What's amazing about Zac is he seems to be bent on destroying the clean cut wholesome pretty boy persona Disney cultivated for him in "High School Musical" to venture into things more dark and offensive.

Devine is so off putting as the buffoonish louder brother, overacting all over the place and always making not so funny faces. Anna Kendrick fails to persuade that she can be a stupid girl and it's too bad for her that Zac looks prettier than her. Aubrey Plaza is the only who fits her character comfortably and it's only because she seems to be truly obnoxious even off cam.

The movie presents more shocking sight gags, like the massage scene that the naked bride gets from an equally naked Indian masseur. Then there's also the sauna scene involving Aubrey giving pleasure to Mike and Dave's lesbian cousin and the stable scene where the drugged bride and Anna strip to let the horses out.

Then, in the end credits, there's the usual blooper outtakes and, in all honest, we didn't find them funny at all but ridiculous. The movie is the directorial debut of Jake Szymanski, who used to direct portions of "Saturday Night Live". Just like other directors who are so focused on coming up with outrageous jokes, he has lost sight of what's truly funny. It's just crass, dumb, extremely silly, but without the accompanying laughs. In other words, this movie is an epic failure, no doubt it was big flop in the U.S. and even more so locally. When we watched it in a mall theatre, there were only just about ten of us inside the moviehouse.
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