Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

Year: 2016
Genre: Comedy:
Directed: Nicholas Stoller
Stars: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ike Barinholtz, Kiersey Clemons, Dave Franco, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Beanie Feldstein, Selena Gomez
Production: Good Universe

In 2014 Judd Apatow and his army of acolytes produced a mid-budget, mid-grade, mid-comedic College Humor sketch, stretched it out to an hour and a half and gave the reins to perennial likable shlub Seth Rogen. The result was Neighbors (2014) an amalgam of low-brow pranks and gags mixed with Gen-X suburban ennui. And guess what, it worked. The film was a mid-level success held together by some tried and true comedic situations and Zac Efron's "look I can be one of the guys too" self-effacement. Then came the sequel; an unnecessary little runt of a movie that would have been forgetful if not for its frustratingly cynical clasping of progressive politics.

The film is book-ended by several viral videos meant to prime the audience for this or that. The first such video shows the white veiled ladies of Phi Lambda welcoming their pledges with open arms to their sorority house. Incoming freshman Shelby (Moretz) lights up a joint, apparently comfortable enough around women dressed like their at a cult meeting to do so. She's promptly informed that not only can she not smoke weed in the house but sororities are not allowed to throw parties only frats can. Due to this revelation, Shelby along with new friends Beth (Clemons) and Nora (Feldstein) decide to start their own off-campus sorority and guess what house they move into. That's right the house next door to the Radners (Rogen and Byrne) who just happen to be trying to sell their home.

If this movie followed the recipe of the first movie it could have been enjoyed and forgotten like the increasingly meager Revenge of the Nerds (1984-1994) sequels. Yet instead of coming up with contrived but enjoyable comic set-pieces, a gaggle of six writers and probably an entire marketing department decided to add a generous amount of social justice tomfoolery for the sake of haphazardly appealing to the youth. Shelby's Kappa Nu sorority is entirely based on a feminist ideal whose sisterhood not only attracts college girls tired of the college's skivvy frat culture but even attracts wayward graduate Teddy Sanders (Efron).

Hurray feminism?

There's no inherent problem with appealing to the new generation's pluralistic attitude towards race, feminism, homosexuality, et al. but if we're really going to go that route you should back it up with...something. Instead what we get are a series of lectures largely coming from Shelby's run-ins with Teddy whose privilege checks stop the humor and the plot dead in its tracks. Are we supposed to laugh at Teddy for never realizing that his old fraternity parties were sexist or are we supposed to laugh at their supposedly clever theme names? What about his relationship with best friend Pete (Franco) and his boyfriend? How about Mac Radner's friend Jimmy (Barinholtz) casually referencing men's rights? With the level of asides explaining what characters should and shouldn't joke about is it any wonder the audience manages a chuckle?

Ok so you stay home and take care of the kid. Seth go nuts!

It's ironic to think that the first Neighbors had a more progressive tone by comparison. A tone that accepted Rose Byrne's character as more than just the nagging wife but a partner in the original's game of oneupsmanship. In this film however she's relegated to the background due to pregnancy. Thus the only supposedly strong female characters are the sorority girls who dress pledges in Minion costumes, control their finances via buckets of cash and have no idea what a phone cord is.

Cloaked in a progressive politics, drenched in social justice buzzwords and completely lacking narrative coherence, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is precisely the kind of movie that Hollywood needed to stop making yesterday. It's the kind of movie that not only sucks, it fuels the fire of anti-feminist trolls who see any movie with a purportedly female agenda as inferior. These a**hats need to be proven wrong which can't be done when you attach bold, intelligent themes onto a smoldering trash fire whose only point in its favor is it passed the Bechdel Test.

Final Grade: F