The film is directed by Nicholas Stoller ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall"), is written by Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien (former Apatow producers), and stars Seth Rogen, who got his start in "Freaks and Geeks" and has appeared in what seems like hundreds of other Apatow flicks.
Thankfully, unlike some recent additions to the greater Apatow family, "Neighbors" is a welcome addition that compares favourably to some of its funnier sibling films.
OK, enough already, I get it. It's Apatowian. La dee da. But I've seen the trailers, isn't this just a crappy frat boy movie?
First of all, try to never watch trailers, especially for comedies. There are films that cram every joke into the trailer, leaving you flat when you finally see the film. There are other films that are more subtle or intelligent, and then it's just a mess trying to cram that tonality into a three-minute commercial.
You're avoiding the question...
True. OK, here's the deal. Yes, it's a frat-boys-move-next-door-to-married-couple movie. And I admit, that sounds like a terrible idea. Despite the pedigree, I expected a horrendous mess like "Project X" (either the one with out-of-control simians throwing their feces around, or the one from 1987).
I feared cheap jokes and gross-out mediocrity.
What I was not expecting, I guess, is that the film would be excellent.
Excellent?
Yup. Those clever writers did something kind of, erm, wonderful. They wrote the parents (Rogen and the effervescently excellent Rose Byrne) as a mix of responsible adults and complete dolts. They also didn't make the guy some ridiculous man-child while the stern wife was there to play the nagging shrew. No, they're both idiots, and it's a delight to see.
As for the frat boys, there's actually a lovely bit of story going on, dealing with both the inherent fun of frat life as a flipside to its implicit stupidity and its ephemeral nature. "Old School" and "Animal House" both set the bar pretty high, but thanks to pitch-perfect performances by Dave Franco and Zac Efron, in some ways this might be even better.
Shut up!
Look, Efron's freakin' great in this film. He's doing exactly what the story calls for, to come across as both shallow, cunning and yet wildly oblivious about the bigger picture. Yes it's a silly and over-the-top comedy, but there's a genuine line of tragedy running through the film, and it falls on Efron's (ripped) shoulders to nail that tonality.
He's a pretty boy that seems like he was grown in some lab for generating pubescent fascination. But he shows, once again, he's far more than just some plastic actor. While I'll never apologize for my love of "Hairspray," he's also put in some solid work in the likes of "Parkland," and for the viewer open to what he's doing in this flick, we can hope to see him in genuinely interesting projects as he gets older.
That or his workouts might shatter his skeleton. It's hard to say. At any rate, in this film Efron nails it. So, for that matter, does the younger Franco. Combined, they give a welcome complexity to this aspect of the story, and help elevate it into something much more than the premise would lead you to believe.
So this isn't a stoner frat-boy comedy?
Well, yeah, it is. There are hijinks, and weed jokes, and more. "Neighbors" isn't quite on the level of "The Big Lebowski" in the sense of being both an exercise in stoner silliness and a profoundly deep film, but it's way closer than you may have guessed it to be, certainly in line with the likes of "This Is The End" or "Pineapple Express" (which, by the way, are two you should totally love).
At its best, "Neighbors" is the thinking person's gross-out stoner comedy. There a bit with a problematic boob that's not worth spoiling, but weeks after I saw the pre-screening it's still haunting me. Sure, you won't get any prizes for guessing where the story heads, but it's a hell of a fun ride along the way. This is obnoxiousness doled out with almost surgical precision, and it's a humongous credit to the filmmakers that none of the maddening bits overstay their welcome.
Rogen does his stupid laugh, doesn't he?
Yeah, he does. But you won't notice it as much, because your own laughter will be drowning it out. "Neighbors," quite simply, is one of the funniest films of the year, and a supreme cautionary tale for any young homeowners. It instantly leaps into being a member of the exclusive fraternity of genuinely hilarious frat-boy films, and makes anyone with a mortgage think twice about how to handle those nice group of kids who just want to have a bit of fun next door.
"Neighbors" opens in theatres on May 9.
