iRate: ‘The Wrong Missy’ brings all the right laughs

By JASON GUYER
Adam Sandler is having a good year. I absolutely love being able to say this statement. I want to support everything Sandler does. The 53-year-old actor is, after all, a New Hampshire native, so naturally Sandler gets a little home court advantage. The advantage though has been wearing thin as I have been waiting for a good Adam Sandler film stretch for a long time since his last two in the late 90s.

The first span of film greatness spanned from 1994 to 1996 which began with the release of “Airheads” and ended with “Happy Gilmore.” The second lasted another two years from 1998’s “The Waterboy” to 2000’s vastly underrated “Little Nicky.”

Fast forward to the end of 2019 and start of 2020 and Adam Sandler has the best acting performance of his career in “Uncut Gems.”

Now, Sandler’s Happy Madison production company comes out with “The Wrong Missy.”

“The Wrong Missy,” which stars David Spade (Tim Morris) and Lauren Lapkuis (Melissa “Missy”), is the funniest Happy Madison film in a very very long time — since 2010’s “Grown Ups” at least.

Spade is most likely best known as Joe Dirt even though I always remember him best paired alongside Chris Farley. Lauren Lapkus is most likely best known either as Susan Fischer from “Orange is the New Black” or Denise on “The Big Bang Theory.”

“The Wrong Missy” uses a very common film premise where a guy or girl thinks one person is the person of their dreams but after having an experience with another they find out they are wrong.

Spade’s character, Tim, is an average guy just looking to date and find someone to fall in love with. Right off the bat, “The Wrong Missy” starts Tim on a blind date setup by his grandmother. Here he meets Lauren Lapkus’ Missy.

The opening scene just shows the viewer Lapkus is going to be hilarious in this film. Missy has Tim look for her at the bar of a restaurant but describes herself incorrectly and as someone else who is already on a date with another man. This sets Tim up in an immediate and funny confrontation. The date goes all downhill from there and Tim never plans on seeing Missy again.

However, Tim meets “the girl of his dreams” at an airport. Melissa, otherwise referred to as “Missy.” This Missy, played by Molly Sims, is a former beauty pageant winner.

Tim and Sims’ Missy hit it off, so much so that Tim wants to invite her to his company retreat in Hawaii.

This is where Tim’s plans go awry. Tim failed to distinguish the two from one another in his phone, so Tim accidentally texts the wrong Missy. Lauren Lapkus’ Missy shows up in Hawaii and ultimately wreaks havoc on Tim’s life.

One would assume Spade does or tries to be the comedy star in “The Wrong Missy,” but he doesn’t, and that is the best part.

Adam Sandler and Happy Madison productions have continuously put Spade as the lead and tried to make him the humor of the film. It has not worked. See Netflix’s “The Do-Over” or “Father of the Year.” This setup does not work and both films were not good. To make a sports analogy, Spade is Scottie Pippen — best as a number two.

Spade was at his best next to Chris Farley. While Lauren Lapkus is no Chris Farley, she is the closest I have seen to him working with Spade.

It got kind of bad after Farley’s death. Anyone remember Artie Lang in a blond wig looking like Farley?

Lapkus goes off in “The Wrong Missy” and it works.

“The Wrong Missy” is the first Adam Sandler film that felt like an Adam Sandler film in years and it doesn’t even have Adam Sandler in it.

The best part is it’s also quite funny. One scene can always be funny. It is hard to make an entire film funny.

“The Wrong Missy” accomplishes that and it does so by giving Lapkus the reins. She is quite funny in “The Wrong Missy” and Spade knows how to amplify the humor of someone else.

The scene where they first check in at the hotel, enter the hotel room and Lapkus’ Missy stomps around yelling, “I made it!” The whole sequence is very funny.

Spade and Lapkus work well together. Spade is passively funny and crushes it in scenes where there is no Lapkus and in the scenes where Lapkus is in them she takes charge. In the same monstrous fashion Farley took charge but in very different ways. Farley was always the under-educated buffoonish “monster” and Lapkus is more the way too much and dominant personality character.

Both are funny and work very well with the passive comedy of Spade. He always needs a number one. Now that he has found it after just shy of 25 years, I want to see more films starring the pair. Maybe even a sequel.

If you watch one Adam Sandler movie that is on Netflix right now, make it “The Wrong Missy.”

Tim Morris may have texted the wrong Missy but “The Wrong Missy” brings all the right laughs.

IRATE SCORE: 3/5

Jason Guyer is an avid moviegoer and works in the graphics department at the Eagle Times. For questions or comments he can be emailed at [email protected].