Metacritic reviews

Vacation Friends is a droll and mildly salacious flick that revels in subverting the expectations of its central characters and, eventually, its viewers.

There’s nothing especially revelatory about Vacation Friends. There are a few genuinely good laughs to be had involving drugs, golf and a catamaran, both during the vacation and the wedding. And there’s some tedium during the inevitable falling out segment. But it’s enjoyable in a way that doesn’t make you think about lost time and experiences over the past year.

Clay Tarver, a veteran of the TV series “Silicon Valley” (and a founder of the postpunk band Chavez) directs with an eye and ear that’s a cut above what one usually gets with this sort of fare.

Vacation Friends does earn a fair share of guffaws with its familiar mix of R-rated raunch and feel-good sentiment, and it’s lightly amusing to see the well-cast players breathe a satisfying degree of fresh life into a predictable scenario that recalls “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” “What About Bob?” and a dozen or so similarly contrived comedies.

The talented quartet saves the movie, but making it great would take a rewrite.

The base ingredients are here – a charming, comically adept cast, a fun culture clash set-up, idyllic scenery! – but they’re carelessly tossed together rather than combined with any thought, care or even slickness.

Everybody has to lean into the would-be laughs too hard because they’re uncertain there’s another one coming again any time soon. The situations are recycled and dully predictable.

Vacation Friends could’ve been the fun, lackadaisical resort comedy it wants to be. Our ensemble has considerable chemistry and are all charismatic performers in their own right. It’s fun to watch Cena in goading jock mode, until Howery jumps off a cliff with his glasses still on. Unfortunately, Tarver’s film soon veers hard on its cinematic jet skis, and falls flat on its face.

Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, and Meredith Hagner travel to Mexico in Vacation Friends, but they never really go anywhere.

This culture clash comedy is a car crash only John Cena survives.