Neighbors isn’t nearly original enough or nasty enough. Or funny enough. Lactation jokes, air bag gags, innumerable marijuana cracks–what else have you got, director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was equally forgettable as this one)?
Any frat comedy starring Zac Ephron already has two strikes against it. The presence of Seth Rogen might be expected to mitigate matters but this film has about as much in common with Rogen’s 2013 gem This Is The End as the Delta Psi Beta brothers have in common with Rogen and wife Rose Byrne. When the boys move in next to the couple and their infant daughter Rogen and Byrne initially fawn over the opportunity to hang with the boys. After they start realizing the kid stuff next door is meddlesome, noisy, and offensive (unless you enjoy a bunch of yahoos staring at you through your window while you’re having sex), sparks should start flying. Instead a lot of potential comedy in the conflict goes as flat as all the stale beer laying around in the aftermath of one of Ephron and sidekick Dave Franco’s numerous bashes.
Unless your idea of funny is a frat trying to sell molds of their own jimmies as sex toys, you may be better off watching This Is The End again and save your time here. As a Rogen completist, I felt compelled to watch. He has some moments and so does the talented Byrne but they seem to be winging it, straining to get through the seamy, tired script. By the time Ephron is sitting in college dean Lisa Kudrow’s office facing discipline, I was looking at my watch to see how much time was left in this flick. I could go on and spoil every non-funny joke here, but better to forget this scattershot train wreck quickly.
Oh yeah, roughly three quarters of film critics out there currently give Neighbors a thumbs up. I enjoy funny comedies–really!