Surprisingly enough, the dames are raunchier than the dudes in the dim-witted, slapstick saga "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates," with Zac Efron and Adam Devine standing in for the notorious, real-life Stangle brothers. Typically, when a movie advertises itself as "based on true events," audiences are inclined to roll their eyes and prepare for the worst kind of exaggeration. Ostensibly based on their madcap memoir "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: and a Thousand Cocktails," the movie "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" escalates their escapades to the extreme, but freshman director Jake Szymanski and "Neighbors" scenarists Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O'Brien have apparently captured the gusto of the real-life counterparts. The premise is simple. Father Stangle informs his two trouble-prone offspring that they must bring dates to their sister's wedding because otherwise they have managed to sabotage every previous family function were they showed up alone. According to People as well as Vanity Fair magazines, the guys took their dates to a nuptial in Saratoga rather than a Hawaiian wedding. Actually, they attended their cousin's wedding rather than their sister's marriage. Furthermore, despite trolling for total strangers as their dates with an outlandish Craigslist post that depicted them as half-human and half-horses, the Stangles took two girls that they knew. The Stangles have acknowledged that Hollywood has livened things up a little, but they claim that Zac Efron and Adam Devine have captured the essence of their monkey business. Ironically, Hollywood haywire here is stranger than the matter of the facts. Efron and Devine radiate enough chemistry and charisma that you like them as much as you laugh at them throughout their misadventures in this standard-issue nonsense. Meantime, as Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza steal the show right out from under them as their daffy dates. Despite its predictable plot, "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" not only provides enough genuinely side-splitting antics, but also at 98 minutes, it doesn't wear out its welcome.
Review of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
