

On the surface Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising looks like a cheap, money-grabbing, unoriginal, unnecessary, and likely bad sequel to a successful comedy film. It is a reasonable assumption to make. But did you know: it actually is possible to make a good sequel to a comedy. Weird, right? I was surprised too. While it still may technically be a money grab and blatant recycling, Neighbors 2 is still a hilarious sequel that builds upon the first film and is able to stand on its own.

The first Neighbors was about a young couple, Mac (Seth Rogan) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) with their newborn buying their first home only to have a frat house move in next door and cause a ruckus. Neighbors 2 has the now slightly older couple selling their house, but Kappa Nu, a nu sorority lead by Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), moves into the former frat house and causes a ruckus that deters potential buyers for the couple’s home. The lady is even pregnant again. Despite it being a very basic plot rehash, it does have plenty of depth to it.

Neighbors 1 had a surprisingly touching plot – the young couple officially become adults and are being marked as old by the college seniors. For the college seniors, especially Teddy (Zac Effron), the couple represents their soon to be future – parties replaced with responsibility. Instead of just being a dumb comedy, it had heart. This also holds true with 2Neighbors2Furious. Character arcs all over the place! The (now less) young couple worry about being bad parents, Teddy has a need to be valued and doesn’t know what to do with his life post-college while his frat brothers drift away with their own lives, and the sorority is run by freshmen instead of seniors. Their struggle is about their desire for independence as they are living on their own for the first time. This in turn has Mac and Kelly worrying about how their daughter will abandon them when she grows up. All the main characters are fleshed out and you can empathize with everyone.

Neighbors: First Blood Part II also has the now popular thing of ‘all female casts’ like the new, already infamous (yet to even be released) Ghostbusters movie. But it isn’t a gimmick or just a different coat of paint. The girls found Kappa Nu because of their disgust with the over-sexualization of women at frat parties. They don’t want to be gender stereotypes and want to be strong independent women (which at this point is also a stereotype in fiction, no?). The portrayal of women in the first film, sans Rose Byrne, was typical Hollywood objectification and under representation. This film has a strong feminist message without being overly preachy and in your face about it. There are jokes both poking fun at modern feminism and SJW types as well as jokes at the expense of anti-SJWs. I legitimately think this film could be the subject of a review from a purely feminist lens. But I’ll leave that to someone else. Since I am a fucking white male, my opinions are probably evil and wrong.

Enough of that serious stuff, onto the meat of the film: the jokes. Oh wait! One more thing, which is technically about the plot. It is much more convoluted now. The first movie dealt with the big question ‘why not get the cops involved?’ and the plot was fairly reasonable and believable. In the sequel the fighting between the two groups escalates to even higher levels (as sequels should do) in which any reasonable person would just call the cops. Involving the police is only discussed in a throwaway line.

Wow. I am totally approaching my non-existent word count limit, and all I did was talk about the story. Honestly, that’s just how impressed by it I was. I don’t know if I have time to discuss the comedy. Well here I go: It’s funny.

Oh, you want more? It’s really…. really funny.

Ok, Fine. What made the first Neighbors great was not necessarily having a bunch of quotable, precisely written dialogue. It had a very organic feeling humorous dialogue more dependent on the characters reactions to situations than carefully constructed gags. That translates perfectly to a sequel. The film easily has the same feel without having to use the same exact jokes. IF you enjoyed the first one, then you’ll enjoy the 2nd one too. Neighbors: Age of Ultron still has callbacks to the first film, like airbags. It doesn’t redo the same gag, but rather uses the audience’s knowledge of the first film to create humor at the mere mention of airbags. The cast works incredibly well together. Seth Rogan is his typical self and both Zac Effron and Rose Byrne have shown with the two Neighbors films that they are funny people too. Ike Barniholts returns as Mac’s friend and he is hilarious. Chloe is unfortunately quite unmemorable in comparison. Neighbors also has the added benefit of not being quoted for 15 years ad nauseam, like say Zoolander, raising expectations too high for a sequel.

Did Nei2hbors need to exist? Of course not. But I am I glad it does. Does there need to be a 3rd installment? Even less so than a 2nd one, but I wouldn’t say no to having another 2 hours of laughs. I know I focused mostly on the almost inappropriately well-structured and out of place character arcs, but this movie does have the most important aspect that a comedy film needs – fun.

8 out of 10 buckets of money

IMDB: 6.4

RT: 63%