Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is, in essence, a rehash of
Neighbors, except with a sorority next door to the family who
just wants peace and quiet, rather than a fraternity. It's not
an exact copy, however, as the introduction of women into the mix does
allow for some mild exploration into breaking gender-based double
standards and commentary on the pressures that exist for many young
women to conform to how male-dominated society would like them to be,
i.e. sex objects. Not that films that have sociopolitical subtext
automatically make them good films, but the utilization in
Neighbors 2 manages to temper the misogyny that permeates most
frat-house raunch-fests, and finds the humor in between the tug-of-war
between crazy id-based sexism and overly high-minded political
correctness.
Seth Rogen
(Kung Fu Panda 3,
The Night Before) and Rose Byrne (Spy,
Annie) return as married couple Mac and Kelly Radner, set to find a bigger home in a nicer neighborhood to live in
after Kelly finds that she has another baby on the way. After
putting down for their new abode, they find a buyer for their current
one, but it's still in escrow, which, overly simplified for the
purpose of this film, means that the buyer can swing by anytime within
thirty days to inspect the house and can back out of the deal if
things aren't up to snuff. The problem: a new, unaffiliated
sorority, Kappa Nu, has moved in to take over the empty home
previously used by the fraternity next door, built mostly on the
notion that, unlike other sororities that aren't allowed to throw
parties where they serve alcohol, they will do all of the drinking, raving and weed smoking they want,
just like their male counterparts in fraternities do, without the
overhead of being treated like "hos" by so-called rape-y frat boys.
The Radners not only have the spirited and determined young women to
contend with, but also the return of Teddy (Efron,
Dirty Grandpa), the jobless former
frat-house president who agrees to mentor the freshmen women how to
make their sorority as successful as his former frat, in exchange for
a much-needed place to live. First order of business is to set
up the rush parties to being in the girls who are also going to bring
in the revenue they need to keep the sorority afloat throughout the
year. However, the Radners are hell-bent on ruining those
parties until the escrow period is up, which means it's war once again
between the family that wants serenity and the girls who want to party
all the time.
Credited to five screenwriters, including the screenwriters of the
original Neighbors, Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien,
along with director Nicholas Stoller (Zoolander
2, Sex Tape), plus the team of main star Seth
Rogen and frequent improvisational think-tank collaborator Evan
Goldberg (The Interview,
This is the End), Neighbors 2 mostly overcomes its redundant plotting
and silly contrivances by finding enough wrinkles of humor in the
premise to amuse those typical Rogen fans, i.e. those primarily
seeking a raunchy stoner comedy. The main object of the film is
not to deliver a fulfilling story or rich character arcs, but rather
to make you laugh at these silly characters and their foibles, and
along these lines, it will likely be seen as successful for those
within the target audience to come away feeling like the revisit is
worthwhile. I won't say it will be seen as better than the first
entry for most, but it does retain the same vibe and success rate in
drawing out hearty guffaws, while the cast is definitely not content
to just rest on the laurels of name recognition, earnestly going all
out in making the comedy work.
That's not to say it always works, as the kitchen-sink approach to
comedy leads to quite a bit of sloppy storytelling once all of the
ideas and alternate scenes that don't play well to test audiences have
been chopped down to a respectable 92-minute run time (indeed, the
trailers contain quite a bit of footage that didn't make it into the
final cut). A couple
of the bodily-function gags are extremely gross, involving a bout of
morning sickness during sex, womb-busting infants, babies playing with
sex toys, and some very un-sanitary pads. These repulsive sight gags
aren't intrinsically funny, but they do draw out instant reactions in
audiences who will likely wince at what they've seen, then laugh at
themselves for their reaction. A laugh is a laugh, whatever it
takes, right? The same goes for the vastly over-mined use of
weed for humor. Laughs can seemingly just be had merely by
showing characters get baked mostly from younger audience members who
relate, especially those who toked up prior to going to the theater.
No need to do anything witty or clever with it when just someone
taking a hit draws out low-hanging snickers.
However, outside of this, there are a number of funny moments for
dim-bulb characters, and though the film lacks the underlying
sweetness of the original in terms of what it means to finally embrace
becoming an adult, it remains engaging enough purely as a
glorified ninety-minutes of sketch ideas wrapped around a central plot
hook. All in all, Neighbors 2 is a scattershot comedy
that definitely won't be for every taste, but for those who enjoyed
the first entry just for the laughs and cast, it's a superfluous but generally amusing effort that
has a good sense of comedic timing. In other words, it's a half-baked
idea for a follow-up that will likely sate fully baked audiences.
Qwipster's rating
:
©2016 Vince Leo
