Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is yet another unnecessary, contractually obligated sequel where the original cast and creators have returned, but the inspiration has left.  Why do this?  Why tarnish the memory of a financially successful comedy that was perfectly self contained, and did not need a continuation?  True, it's not the worst unneeded sequel so far this year (that "honor" belongs to Zoolander 2), but it does the fans of the first movie no favors.

What returning director Nicholas Stoller and his team of five credited screenwriters (including himself) have done is essentially given us a gender-flipped variation on the first movie.  This time, timid married couple Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) have their peaceful existence uprooted when a wild and party-centric sorority moves into the house next to them.  This could not come at a worse time, as the couple is trying to sell their house, and they think having drunken and hard partying college girls living next door will make it hard to make the final sale.  There is a nice couple interested in buying their house, but they have 30 days to change their mind if they don't like anything about the home or the neighborhood.  The movie wastes way too much time telling us the backstory of the three college freshman girls who start the sorority.  They are Shelby (Chloe Grace Moretz), Beth (Kiersey Clemons) and Nora (Beanie Feldstein).  What it all boils down to is that they want to start their own off-campus sorority that is free to have parties and do drugs, since the on-campus ones are not allowed to.  Also back from the original movie is Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron), the frat boy who made life hell for Mac and Kelly last time, only now he is on their side, since he is struggling in adulthood and has nowhere to go, and the kindly couple let him stay with them.

Does any of this have a point?  Well, there is a halfhearted message about gender equality and sticking together, and there are some sappy semi-dramatic moments where Teddy has to learn to grow up and leave his hard-partying days behind him.  But is anyone going to come to a movie like this for that?  We come to a movie like Neighbors 2 for laughs!  I will freely admit that I did laugh out loud once.  The rest of the time, I sat in stone-faced silence.  The project has the markings of a film that nobody really wanted to make in the first place.  The script has been cobbled together out of what seems to be rejected gags from the original movie, and reads like it was hammered out in a single weekend.  What energy the original film did manage to create is largely absent here, and frankly, there's just this very listless vibe to the performances.   

It's obvious that this movie only exists because Neighbors made $150 million two years ago around this time.  So, what we have here essentially is a total cash grab.  The studio knows that it will sink like a stone at the box office after a week or two, but as long as it has a decent opening weekend, the sequel will have served its purpose.  This truly mystifies me.  Why waste so much money on a movie that can't possibly be good, and will only anger those who liked the first one?  Why not try to come up with some new directions for these characters to go?  And if you can't think of anything new and find yourself just rehashing ideas and gags from the original, then maybe there shouldn't be a sequel.  Everyone involved with this have made movies I have admired, and are usually better than what's on display here.  Seeing them stuck in a low-energy sequel that didn't even need to be made is the furthest thing from entertainment that I can think of.

In the past, a movie this lazy would have gone straight to video or DVD.  Now it's playing on over 3,000 screens, and has a multi-million ad campaign to back it up.  I would say it's a sign of the times in Hollywood, but frankly, studio executives have been doing this for years.  And as long as fans continue to race out opening weekend before they even question if the first movie even needed a sequel, it will keep on happening.  Sometimes you get what you deserve.

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