Movie Review: Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

Neighbors was a huge hit back in the summer of 2014 as it raked in over $270 million worldwide against a $18 million budget. A sequel was greenlit almost immediately and Universal hired most of the first film’s talent to return. Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, and Rose Bryne all star again in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, with Nick Stoller sitting in the director’s chair once more. Add in the talented Chloe Grace Mortez and all signs point to a solid sequel. The difficulties with a comedic sequel, however, is trying to find the perfect balance of giving the audience the things they loved in previous installments while trying not to feel like a rehash of what came before. A perfect example of this would be last summer’s Ted 2 (2015), which just did everything the first film did but with less consistency and originality. An example of a comedic sequel hitting the sweet spot would be 22 Jump Street (2014), which featured the same witty, sharp writing from the first installment, and added an even smarter story to boot. I can say with confidence that Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is more 22 Jump Street than Ted 2.

Picking up a couple years after the events of the first film, Neighbors 2 shows Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Bryne) looking to sell their house as they are expecting another baby and need to live in a bigger house. They finally find buyers, but their house is put in escrow as the new homeowners have thirty days to look over the house before finalizing the purchase. Meanwhile, Shelby (Chloe Grace Moretz) is an incoming freshman at Braxton University and is looking to join a sorority. When she does not agree with the sorority rules, she and a couple of new acquaintances decide to form a new sorority and move into the house next door to Mac and Kelly. The couple realize that the new homebuyers might back out if they realize a sorority lives next to them, so they look to shut down the sorority and enlist Teddy’s (Zac Efron) help.

While the plot is almost identical to the first film, Neighbors 2 is so fast paced and consistently funny that it does not feel like a complete rehash. There are just as many, if not more, laughs in this sequel than there were in first film, which does not always happen in comedy sequels. Rogen and Bryne are always entertaining to watch on screen and have terrific comedic chemistry. The same can be said about Rogen and Efron, who continue their winning comedic ways in this installment. It’s both a joy and somewhat a frustration to watch how good Efron can be in comedies because he sometimes gives performances as great as the ones in the Neighbors films, but then sometimes sinks to the lows of Dirty Grandpa (2016) and That Awkward Moment (2014). He has shown in some of his films that he is an immense talent but sometimes he just chooses to be in subpar films and it lowers his stock.

Neighbors 2 always has a joke seemingly every minute, but it does try to tackle some larger issues, with both success and failure. Neighbors featured a sneaky good amount of heart underneath all of the hijinks, and Neighbors 2 does the same. Sorority Rising features characters dealing with figuring out who they are as college students, as post-graduates, and as parents of a growing family. Everyone can relate to at least one of the characters’ situations and the film handles it with a surprising amount of heart. The film falls a little flat, however, when it tries to tackle more serious topics such as sexism and feminism. The writers and director Stoll don’t seem to have a full grasp on either of those subjects and while the topics are certainly worthy of being discussed in the film, they don’t lead to anything particularly impactful in this case.

Overall, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is a very entertaining and worthy sequel to the 2014 hit. It features all cast members at their comedic best and the mostly recycled plot does not get in the way of how fun this movie is. It has just enough heart to make it more memorable than other R-rated comedy offerings, and although some topics aren’t as well handled as others, it was still nice seeing these bad neighbors again.

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Scott Davis

Scott Davis is a recent graduate of Oakland University where he earned a degree in journalism. He worked for the student newspaper on campus, The Oakland Post, where he became the paper's managing editor. He also earned a minor in Cinema Studies at OU. Scott enjoys all things film and TV related, especially the blockbuster kind. He might be the biggest Christopher Nolan fan you know.

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