I’ve always had a soft spot for David Spade. Growing up in the 90s, everyone watched The Simpsons, everyone either watched Seinfeld or Friends, and then everyone also had one other random sitcom that they watched religiously. For me, that was Just Shoot Me (1997-2003).
Because of my love for Just Shoot Me, I’ve always been drawn into his filmwork; Tommy Boy (1995), Black Sheep (1996), The Emperor's New Groove (2000) and Joe Dirt (2001). Hell, I even watched The Do-Over (2016) when it first came out, PURELY for my nostalgia for David Spade. There’s something about his tiny, whiney, eternally youthful demeanour that I can’t help but love. So when I saw The Wrong Missy (2020) was dropping on Netflix today, I figured… well, I’m not really doing anything else important, so why not?
STORY
So, David Spade is old, and now I’m depressed. I know that has nothing to do with the story, but they do bring it up a few times and I felt it. Like damn. He is old. Does that make me old? He wasn’t this old in The Do-Over (2016) and in that movie he was specifically feeling old. Is my childhood truly over?
Pictured: I just aged 50 years
Anyway, the story: it’s your predictable romantic comedy affair, you know? A guy meets a girl he thinks is crazy, but then she shakes his life up and damn, maybe crazy is just what he needs? He’s not getting any younger after all. None of us are. Especially not David Spade.
Sorry, spiraling again.
So, David Spade goes on a blind date with Lauren Lapkus, who is legitimately insane. Like, has a Crocodile Dundee (1986) knife in her bag and is sliding under toilet stalls sort of insane. This little snafu causes David Spade to avoid going on a date for the ensuing three years, but now there’s a promotion at work coming up, so the story really starts here...
He has a meet-cute with a woman who is definitely perfect for me: they have the same luggage, they both teetotal, they are both reading the same book… it’s honestly really painful writing. She gives him her number after they don’t bang in a janitor's closet, but he happens to accidentally text the crazy person from the start, and now they’re sexting and he invites her to a work retreat where his entire career is in the balance. Hilarity ensues.
Thing is, she is genuinely insane. She puts peoples' lives in danger. She hypnotises his boss to love him. She rapes him twice! But the movie decides that this is a cute thing, and not pure insanity. David Spade thinks it’s insane at first, sure, but once she hypnotises the boss, nah, she cool. NO, that’s freaking crazy! How are you okay with this? This woman raped you and just because it's girl on guy rape, that makes it funny? This is beyond manipulation, she is brainwashing people! Be afraid!
Pictured: Genuine dangerous insanity
I predicted the entire plot from watching the trailer once, and I was right. The only thing that was surprising was how old I feel. Man.
3/10
THEME
They photo-shopped his face on the poster. They smoothed out his skin and gave him more colour. It’s not jarring until you’ve seen the movie but now you’re looking at the poster and it looks like Melissa McCarthy on the poster for The Heat (2013).
So, David Spade is getting old, and what does anything mean anymore? Life is so fleeting.
Pictured: Lies. Photoshopped lies.
Look, like any film with a young Manic Pixie Dream Girl, you know we’re all working too hard and getting too old, so maybe we gotta act crazy sometimes?
Throw chum and swim with the sharks!
Get jerked off by turbulence on a plane!
Have a threesome with your ex-fiance!
Brainwash people to get forward in your career!
THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS! Or at least, the possibilities are that you just made an inverse The Heartbreak Kid (2007)? I think that’s what happened...
Look, it’s not a bad message, but it’s done so much and so often that I’ve seen pornos that are more thematically enriching.
5/10
TECHNICAL
There’s a whole theory that every Happy Madison Productions' film is just an excuse to go on holiday, so no real artistry or effort goes into any of them. And frankly, at their age, who could blame them? David Spade is so damn old! At least I already knew that Rob Schneider was old, I could deal with that. But putting Lauren Lapkus up with David Spade just shows how old he’s got. Time is a cruel bastard.
There’s nothing technically bad about the film, it’s just very meh. Cinematography is stock standard, editing is perfectly serviceable, the acting is acting. I can’t fault it, but I can’t care about it.
I thought David Spade and Lauren Lapkus had great chemistry in the sense that you saw their chemistry grow. At the start it is genuinely painful, like even the timing is off, but then by the time the characters are meant to be working together, their chemistry is really fun and dynamic. You’re seeing David Spade grow as a character and it’s a nice arc demonstrated by their chemistry. You’re also seeing him grow older, and that’s confronting.
Pictured: Confronting my mortality
The music is alright. Elle King, singer of Exes and Ohs and bizarrely Rob Schneider's daughter, does a great cover of My Neck My Back for the threesome scene that is now on my #Spotify playlist. I’m grateful that Rob Schneider isn’t a part of that threesome, because then I would’ve had those uncomfortable Armageddon (1998) flashbacks to when Aerosmith sang Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing while Liv Tyler left on a jet plane to bang-town. Family members serenading other family members to get their bone on is weird. But drawing those similarities is probably equally weird.
5/10
FUN
As a comedy, you’d hope it is fun. Even when faced with your own aging mortality. After all, you can’t be young forever.
It’s very Adam Sandler-esque comedy. You know the type. Gross out humour, slapstick humour, snide remarks made in such a way that you wonder why any of these characters trust each other but for some reason they never notice them. Adam Sandler 101.
It’s the sort of comedy that I don’t hate. I’ve only hated Grown Ups (2010), Jack and Jill (2011), Just Go With It (2011), and Blended (2014) and this isn’t as bad as them. But it's still not great. There were ideas I found funny, sure; the threesome ended up becoming incredibly one sided, which is kinda funny. Basic screenwriting short hand to show a couple is in love: stick them in a group sex scenario, but have them only focus on each other. But then they punctuated that love, with the pair constantly kicking the other girl in the face and knocking her down. The first time it is kind of funny, because that sort of thing is what would happen. But then the sound effects and the execution of each following occurrence feel so out of place, that I couldn’t find it funny.
That happens with a lot of the slapstick for that matter. There is one GREAT slapstick bit where Lauren Lapkus Homer Simpsons her way down a cliff face. Completely over the top, but still, hilariously done.
Pictured: Spoiler alert, I am still a child
On the other hand, I feel old. I can’t overstate how old David Spade looks. Vanilla Ice looks younger than him, and then I Googled it and it turns out Vanilla Ice IS younger than him, and that made me sad again. I mean, no offence to David Spade. He is human after all, like all of us, I just wasn’t expecting to face this hard good-bye to my own adolescence so soon.
Pictured: embrace the void
Good-bye childhood. You were never meant for this world.
OLD/10
Comments