Neighbors review

NEIGHBORS:

RECKLESS NEIGHBORS AND LAUGH OUT LOUD GAGS ALL THE WAY THROUGH!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Seth Rogen and Zac Efron are “Bad” Neighbors

            Call the police because there’s going to be loud music, drugs, and lots of sex in the new comedy, Neighbors. Directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, The Five-Year Engagement) and starring Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, Superbad, This is the End) and Zac Efron (High School Musical trilogy, Hairspray, 17 Again) and filled the brim with crude and vulgar jokes and cruel pranks.

            Seth and Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids, X-Men: First Class, The Place Beyond the Pines) star as Mac and Kelly Radner, a married couple, living peacefully in suburbia and taking care of their baby daughter. That is until their new neighbors come to town and they are forced to live next to a fraternity house of reckless college students, led by Teddy Sanders (Efron).

             Mac and Kelly are fed up with all the partying, noise, and loud music, so they start coming up with all of these plans to make them move out of the neighborhood. But sadly Teddy and his fraternity have firepower too and start pulling cruel pranks on them, most notably stealing their air bags out of the car and putting them in Mac’s office chair; soon a simple neighbor rivalry turns into an outrageous battle between family and frat.

            Overall, I wouldn’t consider Neighbors to be as hilarious as Seth Rogen’s previous comedy, This is the End, but for what the film is, it’s still very funny and offers plenty of laughs that kept me entertained from start to finish. Seth and Rose are very funny, especially when they’re trying to act cool to the new neighbors when they move in, Zac Efron does an outstanding job portraying Teddy, the leader of the fraternity and has plenty of comedic material to work with, I think he might be becoming a favorite actor of mine.

            Besides the main cast, some of the supporting cast members generate some laughs, like Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad, Kick-Ass, Pitch Perfect), Dave Franco (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street, Warm Bodies), and Craig Roberts (Submarine, Jane Eyre) as three of the fraternity members, Scoonie, Pete, and Assjuice, Ike Barnholtz as Mac and Kelly’s hilariously awkward friend, Jimmy and Carla Gallo (Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) as his ex-wife, Paula.

            Like I said before, it’s not as funny as This is the End, but when things get funny, it’s really funny stuff. All the pranks and crude gags get a big laugh and the majority of them hit bulls-eye.

            Pump up some laughs and throw a wild party with this hysterical comedy that will most likely offend your “Neighbors”.