I can't believe I'm about to write this line.

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES is the funniest movie I have seen this summer (so far).

There, I said it and I don't even feel like I need a shower.

I know - I'm surprised, too.  MIKE & DAVE is a pretty funny movie of the over-top, gross out type - think THE HANGOVER or NEIGHBORS,  

M&D tells the story of...well...Mike and Dave (Adam Devine and Zach Efron) who think they are just "great partiers" at the various weddings they go to - as seen through their eyes in the opening credits, only to discover "the rest of the story" from their parents (Stephanie Faracy and the great, underused Stephen Root) - they go out of control to disastrous results. The remedy?  Bring dates to their sister's destination wedding.

They go about it by putting an ad on Craigslist that goes viral.  Enter into it Alice and Tatiana (Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza) two ladies that party even harder than Mike and Dave who B.S. their way to the wedding pretending to be shy, demure and ladylike.  As you can imagine, chaos ensues.

The key to this type of movie is the performances of the leads and in these 4, they are in good hands.  Aubrey Plaza commands the first part of this movie as she is over the top and inappropriate from the start.  She had me laughing early and often.  Zach Efron joined in gamely and Adam Devine does what i think Adam Devine does, be the dimwit.  I gotta admit that this act wears thin on me, but is serviceable here.  Kendrick draws the short straw on this part of the movie as she seemed to be trying to hard in a part that was underwritten.

And then an interesting thing happens...as usually occurs in these types of films, they leads find their "hearts" and the shenanigans tone down.  When this happens, the relationship between Kendrick and Efron shine (I'd really love to see a movie with just these two) their heart and sincerity come to center stage and I really start to root for them.  Fortunately, for me at least, this means that Devine needed to tone down his act, which I was grateful for.  The unfortunate side effect is that Plaza had to tone hers down as well, and she became somewhat of a background player in the 2nd half of the film after carrying the first half.

Comedic movies often rise and fall on the performances of the supporting players, the can be fun (see THE HANGOVER) or they can be non-descript (see the recent GHOSTBUSTERS), fun works, non-descript doesn't.  This movie has fun supporting players starting with the afore-mentioned Root as Mike & Dave's father.   Add to that Alice Wetterlund's bi-sexual Cousin Terry, Mary Holland's uptight Maid of Honor Becky and Lavell Crawford's Best-Man Keith, they all have their moments to shine.  But, for the me, the real unexpected surprise was Sugar Lyn Beard as the Bride, Jeanie.  She was inappropriately hilarious in a role that could have been one note, but wasn't.  Only Sam Richardson's groom, Eric, was not fun, but he wasn't supposed to be - and he wasn't

Is this movie an Academy Award winner?  Well...no.  Is it a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a warm summer evening - heck, yes!  And isn't that what summer comedies should be?  I think so.

7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis)

They think they have just made them all better parties, but to their parents and to admittedly, reality, brothers Mike (Zac Efron) and Dave (Adam Devine) have only ruined all of the family events they've participated in for their wild party style. So when its Jaine's (Sugar Lyn Beard) turn to get married the family is taking no risks: Mike and Dave are to bring wedding dates to the wedding in order to be kept at bay. That's when Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) put on the façade of being nice and ordinary girls to score a free weekend in Hawaii after discovering an advert from the two brothers. Yet when the chaotic spirits of both pairs start to explode, an apparently normal weekend turns into a ludicrous series of events.

"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" has good and charismatic leads, with natural comedic timing and an appropriately funny cast built around them with a script that has some effortlessly funny gags working. Yet, a fair amount of laughs are not enough to surmount the film's lack of heart, which often transpires into both annoying and unmotivated sequences and humor which is close to being mean spirited.

What severely lacks from the film is a fresh and interesting comedic voice. As much as you feel the director's passion, I couldn't help but feel very cold about the style and visual choices the film makes. It is directed with almost no life, it doesn't feel alive and breathing, the shot choice is for the majority so basic it made my head ache at some point. There aren't any passages in the film where you feel inspired filmmaking and character or story being given a chance to flow. The editing is very mechanical and brings the film into feeling more like a series of gags, which might be occasionally good, but lack any kind of drive given the very predictable and clichéd script.

Still, there's no denying the talent almost everybody has for comedy and even when handed what for most is very average material they manage to elevate it and thanks to what is sure to be a lot of improvisation they make the scenes that work, work really well and transcend what are otherwise deeply problematic character development elements. Efron's career has lately been all about these R-rated comedies and I have to admit I am one who really enjoys his effort in these: he is a great screen presence and always brings a palpable irony to the scenes. Adam Devine at this point is an enigma for me, I have no idea where he'll go in the future, that is because he has some really borderline annoying stuff here, but I don't know if it's thanks to him or the gag in itself I was never brought to a breaking point. I enjoyed probably all of his beats and he had many different ones to bring alive, succeeding in all of that variety.

What is frustrating about the movie is how standard it feels and how much everything around it is striving to be better, but what we end up is this basic studio comedy that goes through every single beat we except and leaves the audience with little passion at all. The premise is right, the talent behind cast well, the script is trying to go to fresh places occasionally, but there is an incredible aura of average all around that simply flattens the film to the point of annoyance. Not to mention the ridiculous quantity of screeching women all over the place that had me almost covering my ears.

"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" is a film that delivers some good and at times great laughs thus succeeding a laugh prompter, yet a comedy film it lacks any depth of character or story to make it live any further than its closing credits unfortunately.

The title says it all. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (my latest review) marks the third time I've seen a comedy that takes place in Hawaii. The other two are 50 First Dates and 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "Wedding" which falls somewhere in the middle, is not as funny as it should be nor is it as raunchy as it could have been. A main character singing and grinding to "This Is How We Do It", been there. Another getting shockingly hit by a car, done that. Two female troupers getting high on Ecstasy and running around naked. You know what, that might be a new one.

Anyway, despite scenes involving an unconventional method of having sex, a women's full frontal nudity that brings back the 70's, and a line in which someone says, "you look like Don Johnson made a baby with 'Zack' Morris", Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates only garnered some mild chuckles from me. This film sans script, has persisting moments that go on for too long, and has line readings that scream improvisation overload. The rest is just f-bombs, conventional gross-out gags, and obligatory outtakes during the end credits. Comic up-and-comers Adam DeVine and Aubrey Plaza along with chiseled Zac Efron, don't stand a chance with this material. Oh and by the way, save your money if you haven't seen "Wedding" yet. Its trailer which promotes summer movie salivation, is way more humorous.

Directed by first-timer Jake Szymanski and distributed by 20th Century Fox, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates introduces us to a sexual term known as the "push pop" (don't ask). The flick follows bumbling brothers Dave Stangle (Efron) and Mike Stangle (DeVine). They come from an upper class family, have jobs as partners in the selling of liquor, and have the maturity level of a couple of teenagers. They also like to wreak havoc on family social events (their destructive behavior resulted in a bad trampoline accident and the near death of their grandfather, no joke). When it's announced that their younger sister is about to get married, well their dad insists that they bring dates to the wedding instead of constantly just hitting on random ladies. Mike and Dave agree and eventually go on The Wendy Williams Show to put the veritable word out. In walks Alice and Tatiana (played by Anne Kendrick and Audrey Plaza). They are a couple of stoner chicks who live in a rundown apartment, say stuff like "hot as balls", and eventually get fired from their jobs as waitresses. Mike and Dave choose them because they come off as good girls. Bully for that. They do this only so they can get a free trip to The Aloha State (the location of the nuptials), bide their time by watching male porn in their hotel room, and sneak off to smoke the almighty reefer.

Now "Wedding" is pretty lightweight satire despite a lot going on. I mean, you don't know where it is actually headed. There's a mixture of romance between Dave and Alice, a love/hate relationship between Tatiana and Mike, the bride-to-be getting hit in the face by a ATV (ouch), and a side plot involving a bisexual cousin trying to get with one of the ill- mannered rendezvous. In the end, it's really hard to care about anyone involved because the banter between the characters feels made up, forced, and badly off-putting. The similar-themed Wedding Crashers was no masterpiece but it felt more absolute. It had funnier zingers, an actual conclusion, and an actual resolution (its box office take of $285 million is proof of that).

All in all, after seeing Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, I'll probably see a lot worse comedies in my lifetime. And in jest, I'll probably see a lot more superior ones too. Rating: A fair 2 stars.