Neighbors

Let’s face it, making a stand-out comedy in this day and age is a very hard thing to do. And one thing that I’ve noticed reviewing movies for many years is that it’s hard to make me laugh. Being a critic does indeed make you very critical of what you find funny in films. Sure there are laugh out loud moments in plenty of movies, but trying to sustain laughs for ninety plus minutes for people who’ve seen it all from the classics of the 70’s and 80’s to the gross out comedies of the 90’s is almost impossible. Only in the last few years have movies made me laugh out loud, films like “21 Jump Street”, “Bridesmaids”, and last year’s “This is the End”. Amidst the sea of comedy classic hopefuls the first true contender is here in Nicholas Stoller’s “Neighbors”.

Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are new parents who are just making it out of the ‘no-responsibility’ zone, he works in an office with the occasional ‘pot-break’, and she is a housewife teetering on boredom. When they get new neighbors in the form of a fraternity house they start to realize how old and possibly how immature they really are. Zac Efron the president of the frat house and his V.P. Dave Franco when challenged by the nice-at-first couple, decide to bring their loud parties and college antics right to their neighbor’s front door.

What starts as simple set up to back and forth pranks turns into a greatest hits medley or an extended trailer of gag after gag. Some quite funny and clever, but the rapid fire nature steals away time when you could be even slightly caring about what happens to the characters. Not that you have to, but the filmmakers did decide to give some paper thin substance to their casts wacky nature and it ends up falling short, at times even bringing the film to a stop. This occurs mostly at the end of the film when it’s huffing and puffing its way across the finish line.

The entire cast is given their moments to display their comedy chops, Rogen is as Rogen as he always is (and I mean that in a good way). Rose Byrne was really great in almost every scene she was in. Efron and Franco both have great comedic timing and played well off each other, and even some of the supporting cast is given time to get a few laughs in, the best of which are from TV comedian Ike Barinholtz as Rogen’s goofy buddy.

Over all “Neighbors” is a decent comedy with some great gags and a really good cast, but loses its steam or in this case its bong water before the party is over.

--Robert L. Castillo