One day. I’d love to see a horror film entitled “WHY?!” in which Hollywood execs discuss projects for a while and settle on a sequel to an unambitious, mediocre and completely contrived “comedy,” except this time, being a sequel, it should be even more so.
Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) are back, but instead of fighting with the boys next door as they did in Neighbors, they’ve taken on the girls next door instead. How … original. And with a wink to equality and stupidity in the same breath, the sorority is equally as self-obsessed and heartless as any frat ever was.
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising didn’t shy away from the big question, “why are frats allowed parties and sororities not?” Oh, snap! Take that … college … housing … system? You know this question was important because Neighbors 2 asked it several times. No, no, movie, don’t trouble yourself, I’ll field this one – why are fraternities allowed a privilege that sororities are not? You mean, you’re surprised that an entire system based on misogynistic rule and catering to privilege turns out to be biased? You may as well ask why there aren’t more black golfers.
And yet this question taunts our heroines. Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), Beth (Kiersey Clemons) and Nora (Beanie Feldstein … really? “Beanie Feldstein” … good luck with that, you brave, brave soul) are tired of not being able to smoke dope in sorority houses and also tired of being unable to smoke dope in the dorm. Their MALE R.A. has serious boundary issues, too, which would make me buy into the fraternal system ASAP, too. So with the help of unemployed Neighbors leftover Teddy (Zac Efron, not to be confused with allergy medication “Zakephron”), the girls convert a big old rental property into a make-shift sorority. Many of the problematic details here of making your own sorority are conveniently sloughed off or ignored entirely. For instance, money, a constant issue in Neighbors 2 is counted here in “buckets.” Five buckets of money = one month of rent. Oh. Nice to know the modern age still isn’t above the barter system. Do coins count in this bucket monetary system? The detail that did not get ignored is that the coeds are –lo and behold- neighbors to the same couple who had trouble with the fraternity that held the house the previous year. And do forget all you know about human nature and empathy; the sorority women have no sympathy for The Radners, their toddler or the one on the way. Screw ‘em; they’re old.
How, one misogynistic fellow might ask, can a sorority cause just as much grief as a fraternity? These girls can rage! We know this when their movie
night of The Fault in Our Stars generates equally as much noise as a frat keg-addled rager. Yes, this is fiction, but I can’t find fault in our stars’ attempt at humor.
Now, for a movie inspired by shoe lint and executive desperation, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising really isn’t terrible. It’s actually a ski slope film – it starts quite well and steadily loses energy as it drags on. The first thirty seconds in which we learn –during intercourse- that Kelly is pregnant, the details of which I cannot repeat in good taste, had me practically on the floor. And more zingers happened in Act I, a few of which were even sold by decided non-comedian Zac Efron. However, the film wears, much like the running gag about their small child’s affinity for Kelly’s vibrator — yes, I laughed aloud when the couple made the vibrator into a doll; after the fifth such iteration of this particular joke, however, I found it no longer funny. Overall, I feel like this film tired itself out a bitt too soon, not unlike a raging toddler or a pledge at the end of a week-long bender.
Three coeds create a sorority
To battle measures of conformity
Whether 70% pay
Or legal par-tay
It’s the neverending fight for equality
Rated R, 92 Minutes
D: Nicholas Stoller
W: Andrew Jay Cohen & Brendan O’Brien & Nicholas Stoller & Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg
Genre: Project X-trogen
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Generation baiters
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “What’s the point of this sequel?”
