General [SPOILER ALERT], can’t really talk about Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice without discussing the plot, so tread lightly.
I feel pretty bad for Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. Any other year, this would have been a fun wrinkle in the time travel movie game, giving it a fresh spin. Unfortunately, Nirvanna & Redux beat them to the punch…and unfortunately are better spins on time travel movies…and flat out better films in general. But runner up to those two isn’t a bad place to be, and there’s a lot more to like in MNNA (I’m using this for the title to save CTRL+C on my keyboard) than there isn’t.
We open at the welcome home party for Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), fresh off his 6 year prison sentence. His dad Sosa (Keith David) is happy Jimmy Boy’s home, but knows there’s a rat to find. He thinks it’s Quick Draw Mike (James Marsden), who’s acting weird cause he wants out of the syndicate to be with Alice (Eiza Gonzalez), Nick’s (Vince Vaughn) wife in name only. Nick asks Mike to help him with a job, no questions asked, taking Mike to Nick’s house, to chloroform and drug…Nick?
Which explains the opening with scientist Symon (Ben Schwartz) singing Oliver & Company songs while creating time travel. So yeah, there’s 2 Vince Vaughn’s in this movie. Vince is pretty humorless here, playing the double leading man. It’s not the Michael B. Jordan masterclass Vaughn’s hoping for, but as an anchor, he’s fine enough and sets the movie’s speed at droll and quippy. But its the rest of the cast that truly delivers the delights of BenDavid Grabinski’s script. James Marsden and Eiza Gonzalez have fun in the little farce they’re pulled into, holding their own against the resident motormouth Vaughn. I wish Eiza got more to do; she’s proven in the Guy Ritchie films she’s meant to play more than “the girl”. It’s the party, after party, after after party, and after after after party where my comedic heart rests, and all the weirdness going on. That’s cause the next generation delivers: Jimmy Tatro, Arturo Castro, and Lewis Tan get side parts and extract the most out of it: the runner of Dumbass Tony (Castro) lamenting the end of Jimmy Boy’s erectile function is so stupid, it’s secretly smart as Tatro wonderfully psyches himself out and gets mad at himself…over and over again.
BenDavid, I have a question about your script. Did you time travel back to 2006 to retrieve it? Every screenplay touch point feels about 20 years past its use by date. As funny as the Tatro/Castro runner is…that would have been a bit in a Judd Apatow film right? Large chunks of the Marsden/Gonzalez/Vaughn/Vaughn quad revolve around which boyfriend was best for Rory Gilmore, a reference I’d like to see teenagers try to understand. All the music cues are excellent…for me. But Oliver & Company to Billy Joel to Dave Matthews to Papa Roach to Oasis? Where was Smack My Bitch Up by the Prodigy? Because the cast sells it, most of this dated material goes by amusingly. But as the audience is hammered over the head that we’re kind of in the past, Eiza Gonzalez’s use here, the Freddy v. Jason weird action editing, and the weird gay panic stuff start to feel like MNNA is maybe hiding some expired baloney inside its silly Vince Vaughn sandwich.
After the mandated open ended ending, we could get a 2nd shot at Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. Throw in another & or 2, and move the references up to 2015. That’s Bridesmaids/Girls trip era y’all! Let’s get Eiza some friends and have her go scorched Earth on Jimmy Boy, Sosa and the gang.