"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates": bulges and biceps, but where's the plot?

 

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) gets a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. A reviewer says that "It's definitely a movie to watch when you don't want to think too much." 

 I always want to think while watching a movie; structural analysis is the fun part. But it stars Adam Devine, whose jaw-dropping gorgeosity makes almost anything watchable, and his bromantic partner Zac Efron, who is also sort of cute, so here goes.

Scene 1:  Mike (Adam) is trying to sell his brand of tequila to a bar owner, using Dave (Zac) as a plant.  Except the bartender knows him -- they hang out! And the guys try this every couple of weeks.  He buys the tequila anyway.  The guys hug.  Zac is established as heterosexual in Minute 1.

Scene 2: Montage of the guys frolicking at parties -- trampoline, fireworks, kissing girls.. Beefcake shots of both. . Cut to them returning to their apartment to find two heterosexual couples -- Mom and Dad!  I'm guessing Mom and Dad got divorced and married other people, so there are four parents. 

They complan that the guys keep going to parties stag, htting on girls, and ruining things.  Wait -- in the montage, everyone was having fun. Nothing was ruined.  And the "hitting on girls" was a mutual flirtation, not a sleazy come-on.  Mom and Dad are being unreasonable.

Uh-oh, the montage was an unreliable narrator.  A lot of those parties turned into disasters. So Mom and Dad lay down the law: at the upcoming wedding, they must each bring a date (they specify a girl).  How will that keep the fireworks from destroying a camper, or grandpa from being pushed into his birthday cake?

Oh, and it turns out that the second couple is their sister Jeannie and her fiance Erik (Sam Richardson)

Character development: Mike is aggressive, easily-angered, and a schemer, while Dave is quiet, stable, and has to be talked into the craziness.  Mike saved Dave from bullies when they were in school. Shouldn't Dave be saving Mike?  Zac Efron is about twice as muscular as Adam Devine, and has a bigger dick, and everybody knows that you need a big dick to fight bullies.

Scene 3:  Betty and Veronica (um...I mean Alice and Tatiana) working in a sleazy bar. Alice gets drunk and dances on a table, so the boss fires them both.  They go home and watch a video of Alice getting dumped at the altar (by Kyle Smigielski, left), and exclaim "Fuck him right in the dick!"  I'm not sure a dick can get fucked by anothe dick.  Sounded, maybe. They reminisce about vodka brownies and wet t-shirt contests.

Meanwhile, the guys wonder where they can find nice, respectable girls to take to the wedding: Match.com, Tinder, Grindr (really?), Craigslist? 

They post their ad - "two incredibly gorgeous guys offer a free weekend in Hawaii" -- and the number of responses breaks the internet. 

Bob (Bob Turton) sees the ad. His friends tell him it's just for girls; he replies "that's not a dealbreaker," and goes to the interview in drag. He explains that he's new to drag, but he just got out of a divorce, and wants to fuck. They refuse graciously. 

Two lesbians respond: "I'm not really looking for a heteronormative relationship."  That's not what heteronormative means, ladies. 

Other responses: druggies, sleazoids, prostitutes, a racist. Check, please!

Scene 4: The guys discussing their plight on the Wendy show. She wants to know how two incredibly gorgeous guys have trouble finding dates. "Well, we only want nice, respectable girls." That doesn't explain it, dude. Sleazoids Tatiana and Alice, getting high in their underwear, see the show and figure that they can play respectable.

Later, the guys are in a bar, bemoaning their plight: because of Dad's "old tomato" (ultimatum -- these boys are dumb with a capital q),  they won't be able to attend their sister's wedding.  Cue the girls in ridiculous pink skirts and 1960s hairdos. How did they find out where the guys are?   Tatiana stages a meeting by leaping onto the windshield of a taxi and pretending to be hurt, so Mike can give her inept mouth-to-mouth.

Scene 5: In a bar getting to know each other, the girls make up jobs (school teacher and hedge fund manager) and back stories ("My ex died of cancer...in a plane crash.").  Veronica (I mean Tatiana) makes risque double entendres at Mike and gets him eroused. Dave shows his girl, Betty (I mean Alice)  his drawings of  anthropomorphized booze, including a unicorn with an erect penis-horn.  Like penises, Dave?  Minimal plot dump: he wants to be an artist, but is being held back by his low self-esteem. And before you know it, they're off to Hawaii.

Left: random naked Hawaiian guy

More after the break

Scene 6:  At the hotel, the girls criticize the guys ("Like the funhouse mirror version of a better-looking dude"), and the guys wonder if they're going to get laid this weekend: "I'm gonna butter them biscuits...I'm gonna baste them hamhocks..." 

Left: Zac's hamhocks from another movie.  He doesn't show any butt or bulge here.

Tatiana nuzzles Mike and gives him a hand job through his pants, but refuses to share a room with him. "Somebody overcooked the soft pretzel," he says, referring to his cock (giant prosthetic bulge). 

Scene 7: At the pool, Mike and Dave show off their dates to family and friends (no beefcake).  Everyone loves them, especially their butch gay cousin, who has been competing with Mike all their lives.  She decides to steal Veronica/Tatiana away from him.  Meanwhile, Betty/Alice decides to help Jeannie, the repressed, button-down bride, let loose and enjoy life ("I've never even been to Seattle!").  That's all I have room for, so I'll stop the scene by scene here.

Beefcake: Surprisingly little, for a movie set mostly in Hawaii.  The guys are shirtless a few times. Adam's bulge appears occasionally, with or without a prosthetic.

Heterosexism: For a movie about two guys bringing girls to a wedding, and falling in love with them, not much.  Very little kissing (every time Mike moves in for a kiss, he's blocked).

Gay Characters: Mike's gay cousin, who barely avoids becoming a predatory lesbian stereotype.  Tatiana may be bisexual. The drag queen applicant is apparently bisexual, also.

Gay Subtext:  The movie is mostly about the Mike-Dave and Alice-Tatiana relationships.  They divided into male-female pairs only occasionally, because   heteronormativity requires it. Instead of a fade-out kiss, we see Tatiana screwing Mike in the barn -- his legs are in the air.  She is literally the top. 

My Grade:  Writers and directors working with extremely attractive men must always find ways to compel viewers to stop thinking about kissing them (or fellating them) and pay attention to the story.  Here they fail.  The guys don't get enough back story or personality to make them interesting, and outside of a few funny bits, the story is rather banal.  

That would be ok if we got a lot of beefcake, but Zac and Adam rarely take their shirts off, there is female but not male frontal nudity, and only Adam displays a bulge.  B-

See also: Penis expert Adam Devine examines Zac Efron's. With examples.

Human Discoveries: Paleolithic hunks invent underwear.  With Adam Devine, Zac Efron, and Milo Ventimiglia