Movie Description:
“Two hard-partying brothers place an online ad to find the perfect dates for their sister’s Hawaiian wedding. Hoping for a wild getaway, the boys instead find themselves out-hustled by the uncontrollable duo.”
I was looking forward to this film because the trailer was hilarious! Adam Devine (Workaholics) and Zac Efron (Neighbors) seemed like a hysterical pairing. The addition of Anna Kendrick (Up in The Air) and Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) only elevated my excitement because I enjoy their previous work. Let’s get started 🙂
The Story:
I thought the story was a a mediocre synopsis for a full length film. You have these two immature guys who ruin every party they attend and they need two dates who can hopefully keep them in check for their sisters wedding. There’s a lot of situational comedy opportunities for that narrative, but I didn’t care much about it going well or bad for the characters, I was just watching and laughing occasionally.
Characters/Performances:
Adam Devine was the same character he is in Workaholics and Pitch Perfect, but that’s okay because I haven’t got tired of him yet, I still think he’s hilarious, similarly to how it is when I see Kevin Hart.
Zac Efron is someone I’m always excited to see. He’s making a lot of great choices in his career to stray away from his High School Musical days. He has so much potential and I have no doubt he’ll be giving us some excellent performances soon. His comedic chops are wonderful! I never knew he could be so funny and it definitely shines in Neighbors and this film. His chemistry with Devine works very well making them the best part of this film!
Theme:
I interpreted the message of this film to be, “at some point everyone has to grow up and mature.” Years had gone by where Mike and Dave were consistently told to stop acting like immature adults and to start acting like responsible people. This theme is great, but these characters barely develop and it’s not done nearly as well as other comedic films with that theme. For example, Step Brothers is hilarious and expresses that theme so well with the patient development of their characters.
Negatives:
This is so unfortunate and I wish I didn’t feel this way because I was really looking forward to seeing them in this film, but Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza were very bad in this film. They didn’t make me laugh and their performances of their characters were annoying. I love their performances in Up in The Air (Anna Kendrick) and Parks and Recreation (Aubrey Plaza) but these girls they were portraying was not fitting for them. A lot of focus was spent on them and I didn’t feel they were adding to the film at all.
Zac Efron was great, but at some point in the film, he seemed like a totally different character. There was never an indication that allowed him to have a calm and reserved interaction with another character because before that direct change he was loud, impulsive, and always exaggerating.
The comedy was serviceable. I thought Devine and Zac were definitely an awesome comedic duo, but the rest of the comedy and jokes were just okay or not funny. Some jokes kept going on and that became distracting, awkward, and disrupted the flow of the film.
OVERALL:
I loved the chemistry between Zac and Devine, I thought the story was alright, Plaza and Kendrick were not good, The theme wasn’t as expressed as well as it could have been, some scenes were just awkward, and I didn’t laugh as much as I wanted to. This is a film you could watch at home. My rating for this film is 6/10.
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