Time machines come in many shapes and sizes, or at least they theoretically would, if they existed. The more important question in movies that feature time travel as a thing that can happen isn’t usually what the device looks like or how it was invented but who’s using it and what they want to accomplish. In the 20th Century Studios comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, the main character knows just that but not much else, and what ensues is a brainless blockbuster that does pack plenty of laughs but always defers to senseless violence over common sense.
Nick (Vince Vaughn) calls Mike (James Marsden) away from a secretive romantic night with Nick’s wife Alice (Eiza González) with a mysterious assignment to walk to Nick’s house door and knock out the person who answers it. Mike is definitely confused when it’s Nick himself, but soon learns that Nick has come back from the future to save his best friend, who has been marked for death by their mob boss Sosa (Keith David), who believes that Mike is the mole who sent his son Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro) to prison for six years. Future Nick has a plan, but there are a number of obstacles to get through first, namely Present Nick not being on board with any of this.
Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice opens with Symon (Ben Schwartz) singing to himself while working on his own in a lab before a mysterious figure shows up and kills him. This is one of a number of subplots that get thrown in quickly to this film, which also features lengthy scenes in which characters try to understand what’s happening. Mike not getting what Future Nick is telling him is one such example, but that’s not entirely his fault since no one tries to be clear in what they’re saying, which means that characters on screen are slow to catch up even if audiences may be a few steps ahead already in a script that is far from complicated but still tries to pack far too much mythology into 107 minutes.
This film is meant to be entertaining, and it is. There’s humor in Vaughn talking to himself, and Marsden and González complement his two halves well in their shared scenes. David is playing an over-the-top villain who delights in describing the brutality he wants to exert on those who have wronged him, and Arturo Castro has an amusing part as Dumbass Tony, who’s likeable enough but not known for being all that bright. Jimmy Tatro, whose career got its jump-start with American Vandal, is the true MVP of the movie, playing Jimmy Boy as if he’s the star, fully leaning into his ego and the way in which he’s moving back into the world as the hottest thing around at three consecutive afterparties to his own welcome-back festivity.
While there are laughs to be found plentifully, especially in a crowded theater (which won’t be how most experience this film when it heads straight to Hulu), there’s not much intelligence. Future Nick and Mike’s inability to understand much about the time machine seems to translate to what this film wants to convey about it, which makes for some funny lines but results in a lackluster narrative that stops short of reaching its true potential. There are so many moments in which things could go a different way, but the insistence on minimal communication and planning feels like a distraction that’s meant to guide the plot rather than drive it.
With its tagline, “A time-traveling, double-crossing, ass-kicking comedy,” this film isn’t pretending to be anything other than it is. Sure, there’s a little time-traveling, a good amount of double-crossing, and plenty of ass-kicking, but that’s about it. Doubling Vaughn is a decent device but doesn’t feel like it’s all that beneficial since his two characters act almost the same, and González shines in her scenes but it doesn’t like she’s given anywhere near enough to do. Writer-director BenDavid Grabinski is trying to pack a lot into this film and it shows, with too many disparate elements not quite meshing to form something that’s admittedly fun but far too unserious for its own good, delivering a mixed bag that feels cobbled together and distinctly unfinished.
Movie Rating: 5/10
