Review: 'The Wrong Missy' the right choice for low-stakes rom-com

Don't come to "The Wrong Missy" expecting anything more than a few good laughs and you'll walk away happy. 

Lauren Lapkus ("Orange is the New Black," "Between Two Ferns: The Movie") gives a tornado of a comedic performance as Missy, the girlfriend from hell, in this decidedly low-rent rom-com. It's as if someone pulled her ripcord and let her go wild, and she's the engine that powers this otherwise set-on-neutral spin through the Happy Madison universe. 

David Spade is barely awake as Tim Morris, a mid-level worker at a bank or something who goes on a disastrous blind date with Missy as the movie opens. She sets up Tim to get in a fight with a hulk at the bar (WWE grappler Roman Reigns) as her idea of an ice-breaker, and things go worse from there. Suffice to say, there's no second date. 

Tim (seriously, someone wake up Spade) later meets up with the woman of his dreams (Molly Sims) during a chance encounter at an airport. She's also named Missy, and when he texts her to join him on a trip to Hawaii, he reaches out to — wait for it — the wrong Missy, and guess who shows up to join him on the trip. It's too easy, folks.  

The stakes are obviously low, below those of even your average Happy Madison-produced excuse for a trip to Hawaii, but Lapkus runs amok and breathes wild comic life into the proceedings, making everyone else around her seem even more lethargic (Spade, we're worried about you buddy). 

And the script by Chris Pappas and Kevin Barnett has enough tossed-off one-liners to bring a fair share of chuckles. It's far from even "50 First Dates," another island-set Sandler-land rom-com, but in a weird way, "The Wrong Missy" works. Someone tell Spade. 

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama

'The Wrong Missy'

GRADE: B-

Rated TV-MA: Language, sex

Running time: 89 minutes