Review of Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) by Thomas T — 07 Aug 2016
"Those girls are out of control".
What a nice surprise!
Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising (or Bad Neighbours 2 as it is the UK) is the continuation of Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) stopping their loud, young next door teens from ruining their life.
The good? You know, it's not often that a comedy sequel comes around and it is somehow on par to the original....I've seen that twice in 2016 already, because fuck it Zoolander 2 was a right laugh. Neighbours 2 is as good as the original neighbours film in more aspects of decency than incivility.The cast, for the most part, bring their A-games to the table and portray great comedic and slapstick humour.This film is really funny, like frequently funny. I like that Teddy (Zac Efron) is a sensitive, more matured version of the original character...but they didn't go the 'oh look at me drugs are bad kids' route. No. They went for a more, 'I'm still this character...but I have feelings', and I loved that. Each main character has a drive in motivation to what they are achieving, and they all succeed. It's a bizarrely feel good film in a sort of familial yet tender sort of way.
The bad? Well...ok I get the film's drive on sexism, and you know what? Some of the shit put forward is pretty damn ridiculous. Frats can't throw parties? Like piss off that's dumb. But like the film keeps stating, none of this shit matters. And a few hyperbolic statements pandered to the lowest form of progressivism which was highly annoying. I think I would of preferred the message more if the female characters (Chloe, Kiersy etc) if they had better more functional dialogue and maybe weren't so extreme. There was one segment in which the shit they did was actually terrible, and like borderline evil. If they fleshed them out a bit more the film would be improved massively. Either pander to the stereotype or not for coherent purposes otherwise the morals get juxtaposed and jumbled. Also, not every joke landed smoothly as I would've hoped, very small nitpick.
Overall, this film is a genuine delight. And it ends on a humble and endearing tone. Very good comedy.
B+.
77/100.
This review of Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) was written by Thomas T on 07 Aug 2016.
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising has generally received mixed reviews.
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