'Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice' review: Vince Vaughn, James Marsden have fun in offbeat comedy

WHAT IT'S ABOUT "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice" (try to say that three times fast) stars Vince Vaughn, James Marsden and Eiza González in a mashup of the cinematic stylings of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, with just a splash of "Doctor Who" for good measure.

It's about criminals played by Vaughn and Marsden and a love triangle with González ("Baby Driver"), a time machine and characters with names like Quick Draw Mike and Roid Rage Ryan, not to mention a contract killer who eats his victims. They call him The Baron.

It takes place over the course of a single night in sleek hotels and fancy apartments and big, blow-out parties. The characters are just as likely to debate Rory's boyfriends on "Gilmore Girls" as they are to do or say anything to advance the plot.

The writer-director is BenDavid Grabinski (the Netflix miniseries "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off"). Co-stars include the always magnificent Keith David as the bad guy, Emily Hampshire ("Schitt's Creek") as a corrupt cop, the YouTuber and actor Jimmy Tatro, Stephen Root, Arturo Castro ("Broad City") and more.

MY SAY If you had 10,000 guesses as to how this movie opens, you wouldn't get it. We'll only say this: The first scene has a character singing a surprisingly good rendition of Billy Joel's "Why Should I Worry?" a song from the 1988 animated movie "Oliver & Company."

Do you know that song? Do you remember it? We didn't.

But anyway, back to the movie. The context for the opening scene doesn't matter for the purposes of this review. But our heart quickened a beat and we sat up on the sofa. There are very few movies that open completely out of left field like this. Surely, that's a sign of some sort of inspiration, one might have thought.

Alas, it quickly settles into the familiar genre-crossing, heavily stylized patterns one might expect from a movie like this, in which a bunch of handsomely dressed people shoot at each other and otherwise engage in action-comedy banter.

It works because Grabinski does this sort of thing as well as anyone this side of Tarantino or Ritchie. He keeps it slick, fun and lighthearted. It's clever without seeming to try too hard. The shootouts are timed well and never so over-the-top that they overwhelm the characters.

The movie works because Vaughn, Marsden, González and their co-stars understand the sort of tone the material demands and they deliver it in every scene. They play things straight, but with a keen sense of the ridiculousness underpinning everything.

And it works because Grabinski keeps up his expert use of music, also busting out Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger" among other surprises at the exact right times. 

But look, lets be honest here. There's an emptiness at the center of the movie. It means nothing, amounts to nothing, and comes and goes so quickly that it's sure to be forgotten as soon as the viewer's dopamine rush wanes.

BOTTOM LINE: It's fun but vapid.