Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Wrong Missy’ on Netflix, the Latest David Spade Comedy Vehicle From Happy Madison

With The Wrong Missy, Netflix maintains its status as the dumping grou- er, exclusive home for new movies made under Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production banner. It’s the second such Netflix vehicle for David Spade, the previous one being Father of the Year, which was inducted into the highly exclusive cadre of movies boasting a zero percent Rotten Tomatoes score (for some context, Spade’s Crackle exclusive Joe Dirt 2 earned 10 percent). So consider the bar set — and maybe The Wrong Missy won’t make the oppressive crush of a pandemic lockdown feel worse?

THE WRONG MISSY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Tim Morris (Spade) is an average aging schmoe with a job at a financial corp and a sad-sack romantic life. A blind date with Missy (Lauren Lapkus) has him taking an escape route through the men’s room window — she’s obnoxious, drinks like crazy, carries a giant knife and generally makes a crate of bananas look less bananas. Date over. Three months later, Tim meets Melissa (supermodel Molly Sims) in an airport when they crash into each other and accidentally grab each other’s luggage and have lots of dumb things in common with each other and end up mauling each other in the janitor’s closet. Tragically, they must part, but not before exchanging numbers.

You already see where this is going. They text each other photos of their genitals, and then Tim invites her to his company retreat in Hawaii. It’s not until he gets on the plane that he learns he was texting crazy Missy all along, not crazy-hot Melissa. And so, Missy makes Tim take a dog tranquilizer and gives him a nonconsensual handjob during the flight. This is maybe not implausible, at least the texting thing, since we’ve all accidentally texted the wrong person once or twice, although how Missy acquired Melissa-with-a-different-last-name’s plane ticket despite having to show ID and pass security and all that is something you might do if you want to ruin the experience of watching a moronic movie, so I won’t do it.

As expected, upon arrival in Hawaii, Missy drinks herself stupid, goes cliff diving and misses the ocean, causes a shark attack when she pukes in the water, etc., while every key player in Tim’s professional and personal spheres watches aghast: His work buddy (Nick Swardson), his office rival (Jackie Sandler), his boss (Geoff Pierson), his boss’ lickspittle (Jared Sandler), his ex (Sarah Chalke), his ex’s TOTILL DOOOOSH new boyfriend (Chris Witaske) and other sundry people played by Adam Sandler’s cronies, relatives or cronies’ relatives. It seems like only a matter of time until one of the following occurs: 1) Missy dies when she inadvertently causes a luau explosion, 2) Tim gets canned or 3) Missy ends up showing a whole other side of herself so the movie has a third act.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I experienced traumatic flashbacks to the previous Happy Madison movie to stage idiotic scenes in Hawaii, the relatively middling, but still heinous Sandler vehicle Just Go with It.

Performance Worth Watching: To be fair, Lapkus (who you’ll recognize from Between Two Ferns: The Movie and recurring roles in The Big Bang Theory and Orange is the New Black) has a loose, seemingly effortless comic charisma here that’ll make you snicker in spite of yourself. She throws herself into the open sewer of a screenplay and doesn’t drown, acquitting herself reasonably well. You’ll want to see her tackle some stronger material next, like maybe a Burger King commercial. (Or an Apatow movie.)

Memorable Dialogue: “Hey, it’s the Navy fat Seals!” — Swardson delivers a line that could have been punched up by any remedially literate human being and made at least 12 percent funnier: “Hey, it’s the Navy elephant Seals!”

Sex and Skin: No nudity, but there’s a “funny” threesome scene. And when all else fails, the movie throws in the handjob jokes engineered to make 12-year-old boys giggle.

Our Take: The Wrong Missy ticks all the Happy Madison boxes: Working-vacation location. Utterly lethargic lead performance. Uninspired gutter comedy. Rob Schneider and Vanilla Ice cameos. A cast that’s essentially a Grandma’s Boy reunion, and features an underused paycheck-cashing talent who might be embarrassed (in this case, Chalke). The only thing it’s missing is two dozen instances of blatant product placement. The experience of watching a Happy Madison movie just isn’t the same without all your favorite corporate logos for cars, soda, fast food, shoes, and electronics sitting prominently in the foreground, a mesmerizing and nefarious distraction from the sad fact that we aren’t laughing much.

So consider modest expectations met. And by “modest” I mean “a smidgen higher than nonexistent.” Spade’s appeal outside Tommy Boy remains lost to me. I remain convinced that Swardson’s appeal has never been unearthed, even with an archaeologist’s patient excavation. I worry that Schneider was painted to look Mexican here, although he’s not as painted-to-look-Mexican as he was in The Ridiculous 6. It’s the kind of movie that passes off lines like “Ya f—in’ pube-eater” and “Later, Siegfried and Doi” as funny. Long story short, the movie is anencephalic crap, and probably offensive. But hopefully it’ll raise Lapkus’ profile; she’s proof that some turds have a silver lining.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Or don’t, I don’t care. Such is the apathy The Wrong Missy inspires. At least you don’t have to watch it in public.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Wrong Missy on Netflix