Above: Zac Efron cooks up some trouble as a frat boy in "Neighbors"
You know what makes me feel old? It’s not stuff like the fact “Mean Girls” is
ten years old, or that Blockbuster Video no longer exists, or even that the
Baskin-Robins near my house is out of business. No, that one’s just sad. What makes me feel old is the fact that Seth
Rogen, the poster child (or man-child) for stoner comedies of the 21st Century,
is playing a put-upon suburban dad in a movie. The times, my friends, they are a’ changing.
To be fair, this dissonance is part of
the point of “Neighbors.” Growing up and
accepting maturity is the theme of the movie, which may be the most surprising
thing about it: that it’s an R-rated college comedy that has a consistent theme
at all. But it’s there and it works. “Neighbors” stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as
parents living in peaceful suburbia with their infant daughter, quietly
lamenting that their days of careless drinking and partying are now behind
them. Yet they see a shot at youthful
fun again when a fraternity, led by Teddy (Zac Efron) and Pete (Dave Franco),
moves in next door. Unfortunately, a
misunderstanding creates a rivalry between the two parties, escalating to
harassment, sabotage, and pranks that threaten the sanctity of the fraternity
and the sanity of the parents.
That said, it’s the audience’s sanity
that really matters. When a comedy is
reviewed, there’s really only one question to ask: is it funny? In the case of “Neighbors,” the answer is
“Yeah, mostly.” The hit/miss ratio for
jokes is about 60/40. Seth Rogen is
still playing Seth Rogen and he brings his usual flavor of funny to the
proceedings, while Ms. Byrne (who has only a few comedies to her credit) keeps
pace with him surprisingly well. In
addition, Dave Franco and Ike Barinholtz (as Mr. Rogen’s friend) make good in supporting
roles, but the show is ultimately stolen by Zac Efron as the fraternity
president Teddy. Frat movies are often
about stereotypically hard-partying losers, but Mr. Efron makes Teddy into
something more—a character who loves and buys into Greek life so fervently that
he’s pained by the prospect of having to graduate and become a functioning
member of society.
Beyond the performances of “Neighbors,”
the only other thing left to talk about is the direction. The movie comes to us from Nicholas Stoller,
late of the surprisingly heartfelt “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” the pretty okay
“Get Him to the Greek,” and the fairly forgettable “The Five Year Engagement.” In other words, he knows his way around a
comedy. Yet what’s surprising is the way
frames the party scenes. They provide
the over-the-top fun you’d expect from frat bacchanals, but they sometimes turn
on a dime into tense, unsettling peeks into a house where unnervingly bad
behavior is completely routine. As a
result, the scenes become kinetic and interesting, without slowing down the
story. It's something unexpected but not
unwelcome in the movie.
And that’s pretty much it. Forgive the brevity, but at the end of it all,
I don’t have much to say about “Neighbors” beyond that it’s a pretty good comedy.
It might promise new career prospects
for Mr. Efron and the other Franco and it does let Mr. Stoller flex his
directing muscles, but there’s not much else to say. Give it a look-see if you want a few laughs.
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