Neighbors. Directed by Nicholas Stoller.
Starring Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne and Zac Efron.
Rating: 4 (out of 10)
Neighbors is trying to be five other movies at once, and failing miserably at each.
The premise sounds reasonable: new parents sink all their savings into their dream house only to discover that the house next door has been bought by a fraternity. The result is a less-funny frat movie than Old School, a less gross-out version of a Farrelly film, and a movie that's not nearly as partyready as Project X.
Mac and Kelly (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) are eager to lay down some ground rules while not coming across as old farts. So they decide to ask frat president Teddy (Zac Efron) to keep the noise down while offering him weed as a peace offering. The generation gap is apparent right away, when the guys argue about who is the best Batman ever: Teddy says Christian Bale; Mac says Michael Keaton.
But the peace doesn't last long: Delta Psi Beta is the fraternity that brought you beer pong. It's Teddy's year to be on the wall of legends, which means the most epic party ever. After Mac calls the police, the frat (including Dave Franco and Superbad's McLovin) makes the family's life a living hell and Mac and Kelly make it their mission to get the boys kicked out.
Maybe if there was a straight man or woman here, the silliness would ring true. However, Mac and Kelly are equally culpable in the revenge plot, equally potty-mouthed (guess what baby's first word will be?) and both long to recapture their 20s by gulping down as much weed and shots as possible. "We can't both be Kevin James," acknowledges Mac. But no one -least of all the screenwriters - acknowledges the fact that the parents left their baby at home alone all night, a fact that could've been exploited for a chuckle or two.
No one is likeable. There should be pathos mixed in with all the profanity, and there are plenty of opportunities - Kelly's dissatisfaction with being a stay-at-home mom, Teddy's fear of post-college future, Mac's loss of self - but these are only glimpsed and then discarded, like the used condom on Mac's lawn.
"You guys don't want to go back to your boringass lives as parents," is the only sage line uttered by moronic family friend Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz).
The actors look miserable. Often you see a film that has been made solely so that the cast can hang out and have a good time. This isn't one of those. Zac Efron, in particularly, is clearly disappointed that if he ever stops doing ab crunches he will never get another film role.
Speaking of abs, we see more of Seth Rogen's than we'd like. Seeing doughy people have sex is kind of humourous, right? But then we see him hosing the lawn shirtless. We see him shirtless at a party, and shirtless at Abercrombie and Fitch. It's only one device that points to the fact that filmmakers realized they had time to fill, and so spun out scenes past their funny date.
There isn't a gag we haven't seen done. Mastitis comedy? Done. Poop all over the place? Done. Stolen air bags randomly detonating? OK, not done before, but you can see that stunt in the trailer.
Mac and Kelly's list of old people stuff is moderately funny - the smell of fresh coffee, weekend shopping at The Container Store - but it's nothing that you and your friends couldn't come up with over a beer or two. And when you realize that you could've written the whole movie, with funnier results, Neighbors isn't worth the effort.
