Neighbors just killed it in the theaters this past weekend. It came in with a bunch of hype and looked genuinely funny in the previews. While certain segments were definitely laugh-out-loud funny, overall it didn’t hold up to what it could have been.
Initial estimates are saying the movie did about $51 million in its first weekend, which is huge for an “original” (non sequel, etc.) R-rated comedy. The premise looked great, a college frat house moves next door to first-time homeowners, adjusting themselves to feeling older as they now have a house and a new baby, and they are trying to reconcile being responsible versus trying to stay young and hip, while feuding with their new neighbors. It has plenty of star power. Seth Rogen is coming off This Is the End, a huge semi-surprise hit last year, Rose Byrne showed she can do the comedy thing in Bridesmaids, and Zac Efron surely brought out the under-25 crowd. Much of the comedy in the film is Rogen-style dialogue, in his usual unscripted-like feel (not sure how much was or wasn’t in this movie). However, it didn’t always work, I definitely felt like there were less laughs than there should have been. And the movie got a B on Cinemascore (ratings of pure word-of-mouth movie goers, not critic reviews), which is not good. I think Neighbors is an ok film, though it does get a little weird in the last 20 minutes when it drops the comedy and tries to inject a real story arc where one didn’t exist before.
If you enjoy Rogen’s style, you’ll at least enjoy most of this film, and if nothing else it is good raunchy adult humor that you can lose yourself in for an hour and a half.
Jons Movie Takes 