(USA, 96 min.)
Dir. Nicholas Stoller, Writ. Andrew J. Cohen, Brendan
O’Brien
Starring: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco,
Ike Barinholtz, Lisa Kudrow
Meet Mac and Kelly Radner. They’re a happy couple enjoying
life in the ’burbs with a baby. Spontaneous sex is finally creeping back into
their marriage, so life with little Stella seems perfect… until a fraternity
buys the house next door.
When Neighbors is
funny, it’s really funny, but only half the jokes hit the mark. (And many of
the gags that are on target appear in a fun cameo with Lisa Kudrow.) Director
Nicholas Stoller drags the gag on far too long—much like he did in the unending
saga of The Five-Year Engagement—and the
tomfoolery struggles to sustain ninety-minutes of diversion.
The parents are a lot more entertaining than the partiers
are, though, so Neighbors delivers an
uneven and sporadically funny hour-and-a-half of boisterous shenanigans. The
interplay between Rogen and Byrne sees Neighbors
at its funniest with jokes about brunch and breast pumps; the frat house,
alternatively, offers a mixed bag of Porky’s
suburban humour and an awkward brodown of weirdly homoerotic monkey business. The
silliness of the parents’ role in the suburban war actually has a point, for
Mac and Kelly rediscover the thrill of spontaneity in their relationship and
gradually accept the defeat of their youth after one too many nights of mix
magic mushrooms and baby monitors. The stakes aren’t nearly as high on Teddy’s
side of the battle, though, since his fixation on leaving his mark on the
legacy of “bros before hoes” and getting his picture on the wall offers a
contrived subplot that doesn’t really add anything. The war between Mac, Kelly,
and Teddy is nevertheless a humorous farce on passing the party hat from one
generation to the other.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Neighbors is now playing in wide
release.