The Stream: It struggles in the comedy department.

The Big Screen: Nice action sequences.

The Final Bill: An underwhelming comedy movie with some okay action sequences.

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Luke Greenfield
Writers: Neil Goldman
Stars: Alan Ritchson, Kevin James, Banks Pierce
Genre: Action, Comedy
Rating: PG-13 (violence, a couple strong words and drug talk)
Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes
Production Companies: A Higher Standard, Nickel City Pictures, WideAwake Pictures
Platform: Released on Prime Video November 12, 2025

Welcome back, Streamers. Prime Video put out a buddy comedy a few weeks back, and we just couldn’t get around to watching it… but now we did. Playdate follows Brian (Kevin James), who has just been fired from his job and cautiously becomes a stay-at-home dad for his stepson, Lucas. When Brian accepts a playdate invitation from another stay-at-home dad, Jeff (Alan Ritchson), who turns out to be a loose cannon, thing get out of control pretty quickly. Odd couple parent and kid duo hijinks ensue.

I’m not even going to bury the lead on this one, Playdate is solidly underwhelming. The comedy isn’t comedy-ing. The storyline is giving very little. The Action ain’t it… well, actually, the action was pretty solid, but you know what I mean. The pairing between James and Ritchson just didn’t work like they thought. They were odd, but they weren’t that funny especially with James weighing down Ritchson’s energy in the movie. For some reason, it felt like James could’ve pulled this off maybe 10 years ago but he’s tired now and that’s what his performance said to me. Give me Hitch, give me at least I Now Pronounce You, Chuck and Larry odd-couple energy. We got nothing. The odd couple between the kids didn’t even net us much in the way of laughs or entertainment. I say all that to say yes, there are laughs here and there but definitely not enough. This is one of those movies where the idea is funnier than the execution.

Now, we know all of that sounds worse than what this rating is, but for a streaming movie at least Playdate gave you a couple chuckles, minivan chases, and fight scenes. Prime Video definitely should not follow this up with a sequel as they were trying to set up at the end. Grab a single popped kernel when you finally watch Playdate after some hemming and hawing while scrolling.