“This could have been so good.”

So says DA Frank Crenshaw. It’s his sick evaluation of Phil and Claire’s impromptu strip membership performance. And he is as mistaken as mistaken can be. But if he’d stated that about the movie during which he appears, he’d be right on the money.

Date Night’s premise is a terrific one, maybe because it was born of a genuine aha second in director Shawn Levy’s life. Within the movie’s manufacturing notes, Levy stated, “I used to be within the process of creating the second Night time at the Museum movie and, as is type of our ritual, as soon as a week, my wife and I am going out to dinner.” He went on to explain how they had been talking about the same stuff they all the time talk about-work, the kids, schedules-when he had an idea. “I mentioned to my spouse, ‘Would not it be cool to do a movie about a date night time, where you simply did one thing differently? And, from there, you could have an unraveling of everything, to the purpose of it threatening your life and your marriage, with every kind of crazy stuff going on. But, in the midst of all that loopy stuff, you find yourself recapturing the vitality that date evening was invented within the first place to preserve.”

That is an ideal summary of what I was hoping to see once I showed up for a screening of the film. Add within the considerable comedic abilities of Steve Carell and Tina Fey and, like I mentioned, this could have been so good.

However then there’s all that “loopy stuff,” as Levy calls it. I will call it what it is: perverse. Once issues get rolling, verbal references to sex are constant, and we hear about anal intercourse, masturbation, threesomes, foursomes, S&M paraphernalia and prostitution. We see a strip club-and Claire buying and selling in her evening gown for a corset to affix her husband on the stripper pole.

Date nights are great ideas. Date Evening … not so much.