TheMovieVampire’s review published on Letterboxd:
The Lovebirds was a comedy that was originally intended to be released into theaters by Paramount and I saw several theatrical trailers for it but when COVID hit it opted not to play the “delay it to next year game” and instead sold the rights directly to Netflix. Frankly I think it’s pretty apparent that they took this move because they knew that this was not a movie that was worth paying for another ad buy over because it’s not that great. The film was directed by Michael Showalter and stars Kumail Nanjiani, who teamed up to great effect with The Big Sick and they’ve brought on hip upcoming star Issa Rae so it seems like quite a recipe for success but here they’re making a much more traditional studio comedy of the “one wild night” variety and in many ways it feel like they were relying on improvisations that never really materialized. Most of the best jokes in the movie were in its trailer (and they were never that great in the first place) and with the movie being a lean 87 minutes that trailer really feels like it reveals a whole lot of the film before it even begins. Nanjiani and Rae probably have more romantic chemistry here than they do comedic chemistry and the film’s plot feels half-assed and has some pretty glaring holes. A disappointing effort all around.