Adam DeVine – Tripping Through Gateways

Rom Coms are an often maligned genre. Much like Horror, if a Rom Com is done well, people try and argue it is not really a Rom Com. This is a lot to do with the fact that Rom Coms have a pretty solid formula that has worked for a long time.

Isn’t It Romantic attempts to mock the formula by working from within. Natalie was thrilled by Romantic Comedies as a child, until her mother made it clear that she would never be desirable and needed to settle for pretty much anything she gets in life.

So when we find her as an adult, she is a meek woman, interested in her male best friend Josh (who clearly thinks the best of her and is constantly trying to get her to step outside her walls). She is walked over by her coworkers who do not take her ideas seriously. After a mugging goes way awry, Natalie wakes up in an amazing hospital emergency room greeted by an incredibly handsome doctor.

Natalie finds that New York is now smelling better, her apartment is gigantic and her dog is well groomed. Natalie tries to find her way out and decides the only choice she has is to play by the rules of a Rom Com.

The film indulges all the tropes with a wink, some too far better effect than others. The inability to actually get to have sex with handsome suitors is pretty amusing.

At the same time, early in the film, we get an extended sequence where Natalie explains why Romantic Comedies are toxic where we are told exactly what we will experience. The film also does nothing to really develop any of the characters outside Natalie. Josh gets the most development as a character, at least enough to get why she likes him. And while it is entirely predictable that they are going to end up together, it is at least understandable that the two always had feelings for each other.

Isn’t It Romantic does manage to subvert certain of its core criticisms of the genre and the cast is entertaining enough in spite of the lack of character development. It is not as genre busting as it sets out to be, but it has its moments.

Mike and Dave are brothers who party hard…so hard that their family is frustrated at how they ruin every even. To be allowed at their sister’s wedding, they are required to bring respectable dates. Mike and Dave get the idea to go on TV and put the call out to get some classy ladies. Alice and Tatiana are lazy who cannot hold a job, in part because they would rather lay around smoking weed. They see Mike and Dave and decide to con their way into a free Hawaiian vacation on Mike and Dave’s dime. Crazy adventures follow.

Well, more like “Standard Comedy Misadventures.” As you might suspect, the ruse is discovered, things fall apart and then the leads must fix their screw up. It is a pretty standard trope. The problem for this film is nothing distracts you from the highly predictable beats.

Most of the characters are very loose sketches. And while I suspect it is intentional, Adam Levine’s Mike is far less sympathetic than Efron as Dave. This is mirrored in Plaza’s Tatiana and Anna Kendrick’s Alice. But that ends up working against the film. While there are funny points, nothing makes the movie stand out. It is trying to be in the vein of Wedding Crashers, but feels like a film trying real hard to look like it is pushing envelopes…but even those moments feel heavily cliched.

The film had a lot of potentials, as it has an excellent comedic cast. I went in hoping to really enjoy this film as some crazy farce. Instead, I found long stretches where the film comes to a standstill. At barely over an hour and a half, this is not a good thing.

In the end, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a derivative comedy that is mildly amusing…but I suspect will largely be forgotten.

You can go one of two ways with a horror comedy. Either you can show your disdain for the genre by mocking it…or you can pay a generous homage to it. Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls goes the second route, and it pays off.

The film tells the story of Max (Taissa Farmiga) whose mother Nancy (Malin Ackerman) is a struggling actress whose biggest claim to fame was a slasher film from 20 years ago. Upon losing her mother in a car wreck, Max has quietly moved on as best she can. She is begged by Duncan (Thomas Middleditch, Silicon Valley) to attend a special screening of the first two films in the franchise that made her mother famous.

In a freak accident Max, her friends Gertie (Alia Shawkat, Arrested Development), Vicki (Nina Dobrev, the Vampire Diaries), Chris (Alexander Ludwig, the Hunger Games and oddly enough a completely different film called Final Girl) and Duncan find themselves trapped within the original Camp Bloodbath. As they try to survive the film, Max finds an opportunity to reconnect with her mother through her character Amanda. This is a lot more effective than I expected. Farmiga and Ackerman connect quite well.

The film manages to have fun with the tropes of the genre and earn their laughs. Rather than go for Scary Movie Parody, the jokes are smarter and more fun. Also, while acknowledging the exploitation elements of slasher films, the film itself tends to avoid cheap nudity. There is a gag where a way to attract the killer of the film, Billy, a woman needs to just start stripping. Plenty of directors would have used this as a cheap excuse for gratuitous nudity, yet the nudity is all off-screen.

The Final Girls is a horror comedy worth seeing.

Tag: Adam DeVine

Trapped In a Fantasy (Isn’t It Romantic, 2019)

Wedding Crashing (Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, 2016)

Down to the Last One (The Final Girls, 2015)