There are some laugh-worthy gags and a few jabs at mixing things up, but Seth Rogen's new comedy Neighbors is ultimately weighed down too heavily by bad sitcom plotting. This isn't normally dumb people caught up in circumstances that spin beyond their control. This is a group of people that do not exist on earth doing things nobody would do and reacting in ways that nobody would react. And so how well you take Neighbors will depend on how much you are willing to forgive a plot that makes zero sense in favor of some scattered good gags.
Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are a late 20s married couple with a newborn that have just settled down into a new house. While they hope for a nice gay couple to buy the house next door, what they get is a fraternity from the local college. The two groups try to welcome each other at first. Eventually, of course, Rogen and Byrne are forced to call the cops at 3 in the morning because of a loud party keeping their newborn child awake. Rather than helping the situation, that just causes the frat to declare war on the neighbors. Rogen and Byrne then try to fight back in an effort to get the frat barred by the college and thrown out of the house.
Not one thing that happens in the movie really makes sense, starting with the moment that a police officer informs the frat that the couple next door called the police on them and then escorts the frat president (Zac Efron) to confront the couple. What any sensible couple would do is file a complaint against the frat then and there (regardless of the fact they once partied with the frat) and then perhaps file a complaint with the police chief against a police officer that would do such an insanely dangerous thing. And if that didn't work, they'd hire a lawyer and start working on restraining orders and nuisance lawsuits (at the very least when the frat begins committing felonies as part of this battle, which they do several times).
Certainly that would be the case when the frat breaks in - to a house with a newborn baby - and inserts car airbags to explode when people sit on furniture. Sure, it's a funny gag when they explode and toss Rogen to the ceiling, but it is only then, 2/3 of the way through, that someone (Byrne) finally recognizes that maybe there is a baby to think about. (OK, they do think about the baby once earlier in the film, but mainly as a way to set up a doctor gag lifted from Arrested Development.)
After a 2 minute interlude of Byrne crying and leaving Rogen, the couple is back together - because Rogen missed the baby - and setting aside their previous outrage to try and re-prank the frat for good. One realizes that Byrne's revelation and dramatic breakup were there simply because the script-by-numbers formula called for a dramatic transition to the third act, not because there was any feeling or sincerity behind any of this.
The movie makes a few modest feints at some interesting things, but they're only feints. When a character notes late in the movie that Byrne and Rogen are really loving the war because it makes them feel young again, that's an interesting angle. But, while there is some angst about getting old earlier in the film, there's no evidence these people are particularly enjoying this battle up until that scene itself.
The film also can be appreciated for not relegating Byrne to a completely thankless background role. The film lets her get a few gags in and gives her the screen time to explain her motivations and feelings. In fact, her boredom at being a new housewife while Rogen goes off to work is the best explanation for anything going on here. Byrne isn't the lead, but she's at least the comedic sidekick (Rogen has another male comedic sidekick, and Efron gets a sidekick who serves mainly as a prop to help develop the "frat brotherhood is awesome" message of the movie). Byrne as sidekick is still better than showing her at the beginning and then only having her roll her eyes at "those silly boys" in the background through the movie, which most feature-length sitcoms might do with the wife.
The film might have been helped had they found someone more gifted at physical comedy than Seth Rogen to be the John Ritter of this Three's Company episode. Rogen's top physical comedy act here is to take his shirt off to revel in his pale flab next to Zac Efron's impossibly muscled frame. Which he does seemingly about a half dozen times. The joke is well worn out after the first time but it keeps being made even in the epilogue to the movie. Other than that, Rogen just sort of floats along without doing much of interest. An uninspired dance-off between Rogen and Efron is a prime example of how neither lead is a gifted physical comedian.
There is a nice, if brief, scene toward the end where Rogen and Byrne argue about who gets to be the "Kevin James" of this sitcom plot they're living. It raises some nice questions about sexism in comedy and also serves as a knowing nod at the stupidity of the proceedings. It's just too bad that, given the people involved knew how stupid this all was, no one worked harder at smartening more of it up.
Screened in the theater.
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