Delayed Reaction: Ibiza

The Pitch: Gillian Jacobs needs a star vehicle.

A woman and her two friends travel to Ibiza, Spain to track down a DJ she's fallen for while on a business trip.

This is a lot like a female Search Party. They share the similar structure of going on a big adventure while racing against deadline for a business meeting. More importantly, they involve a group of friends on a crazy adventure. I also didn't really care for either, despite liking the core casts.

As far as I'm concerned, most of the cast of Community deserve huge careers. Donald Glover is finally making good on that. The world is coming around on Alison Brie. Joel McHale seems pretty happy with his opportunities. Yvette Nicole Brown and Danny Pudi really should be headlining more things by now. It's nice to see Gillian Jacobs getting opportunities. Netflix has her for the series Love and this movie. In fact, she's becoming a force in indie movies like Don't Think Twice and Life Partners). What I'm getting at is that I liked seeing her lead this movie. She's great. I'm not as sure what Vanessa Bayer's ideal role is. Right now, she's like most SNL alums - best as a character actress. Granted, I'd've said the same thing about Kristen Wiiig before 2011, so maybe she just needs the right opportunity. For now, she's one of the great best friends in movies. I don't know Phoebe Robinson that well. I can probably blame institutionalized racism on that somehow. Or maybe she's more of a writer. Either way, she was fine in Ibiza. She didn't blow me away, but if she popped up in a supporting role in anything else, I'd be like "Oh, it's that actress from Ibiza. Cool." Or, more realistically, I'd be asking "Where do I know her from? She looks so familiar."

This movie is one of those comedies that I'm not sure how hard it's trying to be a comedy. As a straight comedy, it's lacking. This isn't Bridesmaids or Girls Trip. If that's what it was aiming for, it failed. Michaela Watkins and Vanessa Bayer bring some nice broad humor in spurts, but it's much too mellow to be a big comedy. I wonder if it's one of those movies that's too thin to be a good drama, so they try to inject some humor to make up the difference. For that to work, it needed some sharper edges. Bachelorette is a good example of that. I guess you could call this a hang out movie. That's probably the best description and the hardest to critique, because it all comes down to if you liked hanging out with the characters or not. I didn't really care much for the characters in Ibiza. I mostly liked them in the sense that they reminded me of characters the actresses have played in other shows/movies that I've liked better.

So, Ibiza. Not for me.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend