The latest film to be trotted out onto Netflix’s new rotation is The Wrong Missy. Straight up, you should know that this project comes courtesy of Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions team, so that might immediately throw up some questionable flags to begin with.
Bankrolled by the streaming giant, predominantly set in Hawaii (presumably as a tax-write off working holiday for Sandler’s friends), and featuring some pointless cameos, we look into whether this is worth its 90 minute runtime.
When average-Joe type Tim (David Spade) ends up on the most disastrous blind date with Melissa aka Missy (Lauren Lapkus) he swears off ever trying that again. An accidental encounter with Melissa aka Missy (Molly Sims) at an airport sees him meet his tee-totaller James Patterson-reading Phil Collins-loving soulmate. Their fateful encounter is hurriedly cut short so they exchange numbers to plan another meet. When Tim decides to take a chance and invite his dream girl to a corporate work weekend retreat in Hawaii, he ends up accidentally inviting his nightmare blind date instead. Hijinks and supposed life lessons are to ensue.
If you think back to some of Spade’s work alongside Chris Farley, where Spade is the “normal” one trying to control the over the top Farley, you’ll see similarities here. Except in this rom-com the whirlwind is Lapkus’ maniacal, loud-mouthed, unapologetic female character. The gender swap doesn’t add any value, and during one questionable scene there is an instance of sexual assault that is supposed to be funny but really it’s not.
Also the chemistry between Spade and Lapkus barely registers enough on the romantic meter for this to feel like it comes anywhere near traditional romantic comedy style. And let’s not forget that any logical sane person would be deleting a disastrous date’s number from their phone immediately so the entire premise of this mix-up would never happen in the real world.
We’re supposed to feel sorry for Spade but his performance is so bland that you can hardly muster up any care factor for what is happening to him. Lapkus is treading a fine line between zany and clinical insanity which also means she goes from being amusing to terrifying in under 3 seconds. Though admittedly she is the most watchable of the performances We also have the regulars in Nick Swardson and Rob Schneider who are both irritating and bizarre whilst cameos from wrestler Roman Reigns and rapper Vanilla Ice are just confusing.
I can easily think of much better rom-coms on Netflix that are worth your time more than this film. But if you’re struggling to find some new content that will bring a chuckle, at least this is only 90 minutes of your time and I’ve seen worse films out of the Happy Madison camp.
TWO STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Wrong Missy is currently streaming on Netflix Australia
