Directed by: Tyler Spindel
Starring: David Spade, Lauren Lapkus, Molly Sims, Nick Swardson, Geoff Pierson, Rob Schneider
You don't go into Happy Madison comedies expecting Oscar-caliber productions. But, damn, could they at least try to be something other than phoned-in, gross-out movies which appeal to the lowest common denominator? The Wrong Missy gives us one of the more unpleasant characters in recent years in the title character, an obnoxious boor of a woman who acts like a maniac in a hostile, over-the-top, aggressive way. She is either insane, which is sad, or she knows exactly what she's doing, which makes her a sociopath. Either way, asking us to spend ninety minutes with this woman is
truly overestimating our goodwill.
David Spade stars as Tim, a regular guy who is a vice-president of some office in downtown Portland. Portland? Why Portland? Who knows. Tim meets the aforementioned Missy (Lapkus) on a blind date. Shortly after meeting Missy, who doesn't even attempt to hide her, ahem, eccentricities, Tim escapes through a bathroom window and hopes never to see Missy again. Tim falls to the cement, which is one of three falls from high places in the movie.
Fast forward to three months later: Tim is about to take a business trip where, through a series of contrivances, he meets another woman named Missy (Sims) at the airport. This one is sane, a former Miss Maryland, and she and Tim hit it off. They exchange numbers, and Tim is now pumped up about hooking up with this hottie who is young enough to be his daughter. One of the movie's more elaborate pretenses is trying to convince us that Spade isn't pushing sixty. How else do you explain that rug he's wearing?
Soon, Tim is headed for a business retreat in Hawaii. He invites Missy to accompany him, but through yet another contrivance, he texts blind date Missy and not hottie Missy, and he is aghast when the Wrong Missy takes the seat next to him in first class. She slips Tim some dog tranquilizer and when he wakes up, she is jerking him off. When she and Tim arrive at the hotel, Missy acts loud and rude, while trying to convince everyone that she is a free spirit and they are wrong for acting, well, civilized. About this hotel, I don't know how much this retreat costs, but it seems Tim's company is doing quite well. Whatever business they're in, sign me up.
Missy, by being Missy, embarrasses Tim at every turn while somehow ingratiating herself to his uptight boss (Pierson), who is considering Tim for a promotion. The time to promote Tim was twenty years ago, when he wasn't an AARP member. Missy nearly ruins Tim's promotion when she vomits into a shark cage while Tim and the boss are submerged beneath the water in it, causing a shark attack and pieces of chum floating everywhere. But, then, like clockwork, Tim realizes he kind of, sort of likes this psychopath, and when the intended Missy shows up, we know what will happen. And we scream at Tim that he's making the wrong choice.
Lapkus was much more likable on the HBO series Crashing as an up-and-coming stand up comic.
Then again, she could play Leona Helmsley or Marge Schott and be more likable than she is here. Like the Jim Carrey of old, she cranks up the comic energy so high that you wish you had one of those tranquilizers nearby. It's exhausting just to watch her. What would have been funnier, and more endearing, is making Missy a lovable loony who wants to do the right thing by Tim instead of nearly destroying his chances of promotion at the company he will retire from in three years.
Spade mostly ditches his trademark snark, which is the only positive thing I can say. He is so laid-back and passive that I wonder if Tim isn't suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or hung over from the dog tranquilizers for the entire trip. Spade behaves as if he would prefer a nap over a promotion or any raise it comes with. A Happy Madison movie wouldn't be complete without cameos from washed-up celebrities, so we are treated to Vanilla Ice in the final few minutes of the film. He doesn't take the stage to rap Ice, Ice Baby, but he may as well have. It isn't like our watching experience is going to get much worse.
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