Neighbors

I never thought I'd say this, but somebody had to have been sitting in a room somewhere and said, what if the guy from Pineapple Express, and that guy from High school Musical did a movie together. And that guy was quickly laughed at... but then they did it, and it was a phenomenal choice.

Neighbors is the story of Mac and Kelly (played by Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne). Right off the bat, I'm going to say that there is no way in hell that a guy like Seth Rogen could ever get a woman like Rose Byrne. Just put aside the fact that she has an Australian accent in this movie, which is probably one of the sexiest things you will ever experience in your life, I just don't believe it right off the bat.

But anyway, Mac and Kelly are new parents who are just getting used to being parents.

They're the kind of couple that isn't old, but they're also not young. That is especially apparent when a fraternity house moves in next door.

So while Mac and Kelly are trying to get used to the struggles of being new parents, a frat boy Teddy (played by Zac Efron) moves in next door with his brothers with really funny people like James Franco, and McLovin.

I mean the comedy basically writes itself in the fact that you've got new parents who just want some sleep, and a frat house who want to have the most extreme party before the end of the year.

Its not that hard to guess, but sooner or later, a war breaks out between these two households as Teddy will stop at nothing to make the lives of his neighbors miserable, and eventually, Mac and Kelly will stop at nothing to get the fraternity kicked out of the house.

Like I said, a lot of the humor really writes itself. Between the antics of fraternities that are oddly familiar as I am a recent college graduate myself, to the desire sometimes to go back to that that I'm sure married people have sometimes.

There are some human emotions nudged in there with all the dick jokes, cuss words, and just funny antics you've come to expect from a Seth Rogen comedy.

Unfortunately because of that, Seth Rogen plays the exact same character he plays in EVERY movie he's EVER been in.

Seth Rogen is set up to be Steve Wozniak in the next biopic on Steve Jobs and I'm actually kind of concerned. Unlike Jonah Hill, the guy has shown no range in what he can do.

Now to be fair, his style of humor and his acting where he is Seth Rogen in every movie he's in has worked in different cases. The Interview, funny, Pineapple Express, funny, This is the End where he literally plays himself, funny. And for this movie... its okay. I think the fact that I realized that he plays the exact same thing kind of took me out of it, but if you haven't picked up on that or you aren't sick of it yet, you'll probably enjoy this movie.

And that's not to say this movie is bad, its not. Its just a lay up.

All the performances in the movie were funny.

Seth Rogen is himself so if you find that funny you'll like this film. Rose Byrne is hilarious. I'm not totally sure if it she was suppose to have her accent in this film or not but it worked and she was a big surprise. I mentioned in my review of This is Where I Leave You that she's funny in that and she's funny in this. I want to see more Rose Byrne after those two films!

Again, these two would never, EVER be together in real life. That is one downfall of the movie is that not only do they not really look like they would ever be married, they don't really act like they're married. A lot of the comedy that is suppose to come out of these two is when they're just frantically talking to one another and I just had to sit back and say, Okay... well normal people don't sound like that at all. But hey its a comedy so I guess we can look past that a little bit.

The main surprise besides Rose Byrne in this movie is the performance of Zac Efron.

It has taken me a long time to warm up to Zac Efron. When a guy has the ability to attract so many women, you can't blame me for hating him just for that reason alone.

I have reviewed High School Musical and... I mean what can you say about him in that? I also reviewed The Lucky One where I wasn't totally convinced that he's a good actor... yet.

This is making me start to get aboard the Zac Efron train. He's still got that High School Musicalness to him and its definitely not pushing him up to the point where he's an incredible actor in my book, but I laughed a lot while watching this movie and a lot of it was due to Zac Efron.

I have access to That Awkward Moment and I'm actually really looking forward to watching that movie in the near future. Like I said, it hasn't totally convinced me to love Zac Efron yet, but I'm warming up to him.

I mentioned before that I wasn't convinced on the relationship between Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen, but what I was convinced on was the relationships between Zac Efron and any other male character in the movie.

I mean... if that doesn't describe the obvious humor between Efron and Rogen, I don't know what will. 

But its also in the relationship he has with Dave Franco. 

While I've had a difficult time with accepting Zac Efron as a young actor that I enjoy, I have had no problem accepting Dave Franco. The guy is freaking hilarious and this movie is no different. 

They're obviously making a sequel to this movie that I'm not incredibly wild about, but if the sequel

was just Zac Efron and Dave Franco, I'd watch the shit out of that movie any day of the week.

Unfortunately these two kind of bring up the problem I had with the movie and that was the ending.

Throughout the movie, they're kind of painting Zac Efron as this sort of asshole, but sort of just lost college student who's not sure what he's going to do after college so he's gravitating towards his fraternity.

Well when the shit hits the fan, he's just kind of resigned as the bad guy, he gets his comeuppance and then a few months later him and Seth Rogen are just friends again. While I liked the ending, it didn't really give the character of Teddy any kind of real closure.

Maybe I'm putting too much on this film, as it is just a run of the mill comedy, but I think the best comedies have some heart to them and this movie couldn't decide whether or not to put that heart into this film.

Is it bad? Oh god no, when all is said and done, I really liked this film. Now is it a really memorable comedy? No its not. Like I said, its a run of the mill comedy. There's not really anything special about it, it just made me laugh. I'm probably not going to remember it that much after I finish this review, but it was good for the time that I had and if its on on TV I might sit down for a watch. But I'm not going out of my way to go watch Neighbors again and the sequel that is happening, I'm probably gonna wait until the reviews come out and more than likely, wait till I can watch it for free.

But those are my thoughts on Neighbors. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 where you can also send me requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews from this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Its a scene like this that gives me faith for Zac Efron, this is one of the scenes that made me laugh really hard! Bros before hoes. Enjoy!