First off, this Neighbors is not a remake of the Thomas Berger novel that became a John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd cult flick in 1981. Watching the trailer, one would more likely expect this to be a modern remake of Revenge of the Nerds. Again, nope. This is a battle royale between a nuclear family and a fraternal (as in fraternity) family.
Seth Rogen stars as Mac, who is married to Kelly (Rose Byrne) and has have an adorable little baby girl named Stella (Elise and Zoey Vargas). They are taking their first steps into adulthood with a house in the neighborhood. But they are still trying to be cool young people, even attempting to take Stella to a rave. Mac has a drone job with his buddy and ex-brother in law Billy (Ike Barinholtz). The two have no problem taking on a blunt during work hours. Again, they are trying to be cool while moving headfirst in adulthood.
Kelly and Mac take on suburbia ironically. Soon their world is shattered when the new neighbors move in. It is a fraternity called Delta Psi. Led by Teddy (Zac Efron), the group of men has been recently been pushed off-campus. They are hard partying, drinking and doing drugs every night. Kelly and Mac are worried that the ruckus will wake Stella, so they go over and suggest that the frat keep the party level volume down.
Since Mac and Kelly want to be good neighbors, they decide to join the party. After a night of heavy drinking and mushrooms, they seem to have bonded with the frat boys and are now friends. The problem comes on the next night, as the party roars up again. They have Robert DeNiro costume parties, fueled with alcohol. One begins to wonder if these guys ever do any studying.
Teddy has a goal his senior year. He claims that the Deltas invented the toga party, beer pong and boot & rally. Teddy claims that they need to have a party that will put them on the wall of honor, making them immortal. What is really going on is Teddy is slowly coming to realize that his life is about to change in ways he is not ready to accept, and he’s feeling that he’ll be lost in a world beyond his control.
Mac and Teddy made a pact that if the frat gets too loud, Mac would contact Teddy and not call the police. After 10 unanswered calls in one night, Mac gives up and contacts the authorities. This starts a rift between the two men. What begins with small pranks eventually escalates to some serious destruction. There is a dark reality between these two men as they attack one another. The film builds to a giant confrontation as the frat tries to top every other party that has been thrown. It is a tit-for-tat fight where there are no true winners.
I have always been a fan of Zac Efron. He is an underrated teen heartthrob who is trying to break into more mainstream roles. Zac was good in Parkland and great in both Hairspray and Me and Orson Welles. While this could be considered a setback in his career to be taken as a serious actor, he does find moments to show he is more of a lost soul with no future. It eventually becomes a much more complicated performance with something more than a one dimensional character.
Seth Rogen has gone from a guy with a few lines in funny flicks to a starring role/leading man in comedies. He has eventually become a comedic force with Knocked-Up and This is the End. While this role will not lose him any fans, it is much of the same Rogen shtick. There is not that much that is different or challenging in the role. The biggest surprise is how Rose Byrne was on screen. The actress delivers comic punch after comic punch, going toe-to-toe with the more experienced comedic forces in the film. It is, however, hard to believe that she and Seth Rogen would be a couple.
Director Nicholas Stoller is the man behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. This film does not depart too much from those efforts. It has a mix of raunchy with some sweetness, loads of drug humor with a sprinkle of sentimental pathos. It flows up and down with a bit too many dips and not so many laughs. All the big comedic moments are in the trailer. Neighbors is less than the sum of its parts, a simple comedy with adult overtones. It is not meant for children and wins the ‘R’ rating with way too many scenes of drug use. At times one begins to wonder if this were not a remake of the Cheech and Chong flick Up in Smoke.
