Movie Review: 'Vacation Friends' Starring John Cena

Vacation Friends stars Lil Rel Howery as Marcus, a man on the brink of proposing to his long time girlfriend, Emily (Yvonne Orji). Marcus has big plans and has booked them a vacation spot in Mexico that should be perfect for the occasion. Of course, this wouldn’t be much of a movie if all of this went to plan. Upon arrival in Mexico, Marcus finds that his lavish hotel suite has been flooded and that there are no other rooms available at the resort.

By coincidence, the couple whose antics caused Marcus’ room to be flooded just happen to be nearby amid Marcus’ near meltdown. Ron and Kyla (John Cena and Meredith Hagner) are a couple of wild free spirits taking a vacation they cannot afford and living life to the fullest. Upon seeing Marcus propose to Emily in the lobby and hearing that their room had been destroyed, Ron and Kyla invite Marcus and Emily to stay in their suite.

It’s not exactly an ideal situation as Ron and Kyla are rather obnoxious and overly ingratiating while Marcus is an uptight, quiet and anxious guy. Nevertheless, Ron persists and after a tour of the island falls through, Marcus and Emily end up spending even more time with Ron and Kyla, time spent drinking every ounce of alcohol in sight and even indulging in drugs, even if Marcus and Emily aren’t entirely aware of the drugs Ron and Kyla like to use as ice breakers.

For a full week, the foursome are thick as thieves and their antics nearly cause Marcus and Emily to miss their flight home. As much fun as Ron and Kyla are, Marcus and Emily have decided that what happened in Mexico should stay in Mexico. They have no plans to ever see Ron and Kyla again. Ron and Kyla however, have much different plans and when they find out that Marcus and Emily are having a destination wedding in Emily’s hometown in Atlanta, they are intent on crashing the party.

No points for guessing that Emily has a disapproving father, played by Robert Wisdom, or that Ron and Kyla’s arrival prompts much chaos and surprise among the upper crust atmosphere of the expensive wedding. There is not much new under the sun in Vacation Friends and yet it remains surprisingly watchable even as it is predictable and derivative. The cast of Vacation Friends is undoubtedly the film’s greatest strength, carrying the fun over the top of the clichés.

The biggest surprise in Vacation Friends is John Cena. The former professional wrestling champion hasn’t shown much versatility in his time in Hollywood, playing action heroes and straight man comedy roles. Vacation Friends is a mighty departure for Cena as he takes on the role of party-starting wildman and proves himself to be shockingly good at it. To this point in his acting career Cena has always been portrayed as stiff and when he wasn’t stiff he was a massive muscled up weirdo who was never much fun.

Vacation Friends gives us John Cena at his most assured and goofy. Cena’s line readings have never been what anyone would call natural but here, in Vacation Friends, his forced line readings are part of the characters overall excitable energy. Ron is a whirlwind of chaos, some of it fun, most of it inappropriate but all of it well intentioned. Cena plays Ron like a big friendly dog who doesn’t realize how big he is. Lil Rel Howery is the unwitting houseguest who gets pulled around while Ron plays with him. It’s a terrific dynamic that works really well.

In a rare straight man role for himself Lil Rel Howery has never appeared more prepared and toned down. In his breakout role in Get Out he played a character that was much like Ron, a goofball who was also a loyal friend. Now, playing it straight to Cena’s wildman character, Howery himself demonstrates range by carrying what little maturity, dignity and adulthood that can be found in the juvenile goings on of Vacation Friends.

I must admit, when I read that Cena was playing the wild party starter and Lil Rel was going to be the hapless straight man, I was a little puzzled and highly suspicious. It’s quite fun to have my suspicions upended. That’s not to say that Vacation Friends is a great movie by any stretch, it’s just better than what I expected which was a complete disaster. Hulu sent me a screening link for the movie with an embargo on the review until the day the movie was released. That's usually a rather large red flag that the producers are hiding something.

In this case however, it worked to lower my expectations to the point where Vacation Friends consistently won me over by not being completely terrible. On top of not being completely terrible, John Cena, Meredith Hagner, Yvonne Orji, and Lil Rel Howery are genuinely quite funny and where I thought the movie might drift toward cringe inducing, it manages to avoid a lot of the worst pitfalls of this kind of broad comedy.

As I said, Vacation Friends isn't a great movie but as a been there done that broad comedy it works just well enough. Vacation Friends debuted on Hulu on August 27th and is available to stream immediately for Hulu subscribers.