“Despite looking really good on paper, not to mention the 30-second TV spots, Neighbors is ultimately just a party flick that can’t find its tone.” — Michael Errigo
There really hasn’t been a huge comedy hit in a while. Last summer’s star-studded This is the End is the only big name that comes to mind right away, and while it was fairly successful, it wasn’t exactly a landmark achievement for the genre. The days of the gargantuan Apatowian successes from around the mid-to-late 2000s (he had a hand in Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express and Bridesmaids, among others) are over. Comedy fans are starved, forced to munch on rancid wrecks like Grown Ups and Ted while they wait for another feast.
Enter Neighbors. The Seth Rogen/Zac Efron suburban comedy has been all over social and mainstream media for months, and the excitement has gradually built. In fact, this university held a pre-screening of the movie last week, and the hundreds of tickets available sold out in less than an hour.
With that kind of excitement swirling around it, Neighbors couldn’t possibly be a disappointment. It just couldn’t be; comedy fans have been waiting for too long and the trailers have been too promising.
So, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it must be said: Neighbors is a disappointment.
Like most comedies with huge sums of money invested in them, it’s not completely devoid of humor. It had to be approved by too many people to not have its moments. The plot alone is a simple, foolproof setup for laughs. A pair of brand new parents, Rogen (This is the End) and Rose Byrne (Insidious: Chapter 2), live the typical suburban life until a college fraternity moves in next door. Everything goes fine between the couple and the fraternity, led by Zac Efron (That Awkward Moment) and Dave Franco (The Lego Movie) until a loud party leads to a noise complaint. That means war. Retaliation after retaliation follows, so many that the movie drags a bit, even at a brisk 96 minutes.
Outside of the main four names, most of whom have pretty big comedy chops, the cast is filled with some very funny people. Hannibal Burress (The Kings of Summer) is especially good as an off-kilter policeman and Jason Mantzoukas (They Came Together) kills in his two minutes on screen. Cameos include the entire Lonely Island crew and the boys from Workaholics. To see so many funny, familiar faces taking small parts in one production is always encouraging, almost like an object covered with stamps of approval.
Franco and Efron are the strongest performers here, as Byrne and Rogen both feel like they’re unsuccessfully underperforming. Based on the premise and commercials, one would think Rogen plays more of a straight man than his stoner stock character, providing a contrast to the wild frat guys and making the inevitable mental deterioration even funnier. But this never happens; he’s always just Seth Rogen, this time with a wife and a baby instead of a beer and a joint (though there are still plenty of those). Byrne isn’t nearly as funny as she’s shown she can be in films such as Bridesmaids, only showing flashes of the quality of work she put forth in that earlier smash.
The buildup to this movie made it seem like it would be Efron’s breakout comedy role, the moment a former teen star would find his niche. He is undoubtedly good in this role, and his confidence and occasional vulnerability in the role are impressive — think a poor man’s Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love., just a bit douchier. While good, his performance is not enough to prove he’ll be able to do comedy outside of fraternity row. (His performance in That Awkward Moment is also behind this assertion.)
Franco has already shown he can do this kind of role through his turn in 21 Jump Street, but what’s exciting are the possibilities of what he can do once he breaks through that high school/college student mold. But for now, we can just enjoy his solid performance.
Neighbors is different from most Rogen-headlined films, in good ways and bad. To its credit, the direction of the film manages to feel fresh and creative. Nicholas Stoller (The Five-Year Engagement) mixes some unique use of graphics and the occasional Project X-style handheld shaky cam to perfect party scenes and give the film a modern vibe.
The script, however, does not live up to Stoller’s direction. Penned by first-time big-budget writers Brendan O’Brien and Andrew J. Cohen, it is, to put it simply, weird. The movie takes some surprising turns into the very raunchy and the extremely juvenile. Intelligence-wise, it plays much lower than Knocked Up or even Pineapple Express. It also features some scenes that can be nonsensical, strange and even uncomfortable: Strange gag choices include attempts to wring laughs out of homemade dildos and breast milk. Even if those premises sound funny to you, trust me, they’re not.
This holds especially true considering the movie is three-quarters standard college comedy. It even takes some semi-serious stabs at the philosophical workings of the newly married and the insanity of extreme Greek life. To have such shocking scenes and borderline offensive lines thrown in doesn’t come off as edgy, just odd.
Despite looking really good on paper, not to mention the 30-second TV spots, Neighbors is ultimately just a party flick that can’t find its tone. Sorry, comedy fans, but the wait continues.
