Nos pires voisins 2

Is it moronic? Yes Is it a bad film? Er, no.....well maybe. Quirky, funny, laugh out loud in parts. We all know Seth, ha, Zac Efron: great comedy actor, and Frasier Crane's cameo, class. Come on guys, lighten up.

The writter/ director unintentionally made to much effort to make you cringe during the movie, not to laugh. I hated the actress Chloë Grace Moretz just for her role. From now on, when I see Chloë Grace Moretz I think of Shelby the brat college kid with no ethics. Not a good move for your carrer, sweetie. BTW, have you counted so many times they mention the word "sexist"? Yes, they made women's rights a bad-written movie joke. Bravo!

"Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising" (2016 release; 92 min.) brings the return of Mac and Kelly and their daughter Stella. As the movie opens, we see Mac and Kelly making love until Kelly she throws up on him. "I think I may be pregnant!" she cries out. We then move "4 Months Later", as Mac and Kelly have found a potential buyer for the house but now must go through the 30 days escrow period. In a parallel story line, we get to know Shelby, a freshman. She is rushing Phi Lambda. When she learns that the sorority cannot throw parties but instead must attend parties at the frats, Shelby and 2 new friends decide to start their own sorority, Kappa Nu, outside of the existing sorority system so they can do whatever they want. When looking for a sorority house, they end up next to Mac and Kelly (of course). At this point we're not even 15 minutes into the movie, but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: most of the crew and cast from the first movie have returned for the sequel, and hence we get Seth Rogan (Mac) and Rose Byrne (Kelly), but of course also Zac Efron as Teddy, doing the same old 'dumb jock' stud as in the first movie (with the required striptease of course). But the sequel benefits most from the addition of Chloë Grace Moretz in the role of Shelby, Moretz, the erstwhile 'child actress' (in Kick-Ass) is all frown up now, and has transformed herself into a leading actress, see also earlier this year's "The 5th Wave". As Shelby, she and her gals are all about grrrl power and equal rights, but in a fun and non-preachy way, and that helps the movie greatly. Yes, there is a lot of partying in the movie, but rarely in a way that is degrading for women. Keep an eye out for Lisa Kudrow as the university dean (she plays in exactly one scene) and Kelsey Grammar as Shelby's dad (also in all of one scene). Other than that, this movie doesn't intend to be anything other than a mindless entertaining sequel to the first one, and at that it succeeds. So enjoy it for what it is, nothing more, nothing less.

"Neighbors 2" is now in its second week of release, and the Memorial Day early evening screening where I saw this at here in Cincinnati was attended okay but not great. Probably the picture-perfect weather was a factor, but the truth also is that the sequel hasn't done nearly as well at the box office as expected. It's a bit of a surprise to me as this movie surely is truth-in-advertising: you wanted more of what you saw in the first movie? Well here it is. If you have seen the first movie and wonder whether the sequel is worth checking out, by all means give this once a chance, be it in the theater, on Amazon Instant Video or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, I think you will not be disappointed.

It's been years since the first "Bad Neighbours" movie. Question is did they really need a sequel? The plot is pretty simple, after a sorority (lead by Shelly (Chloë Grace Moretz)moves in next door, they decide to get help from their previous enemy Teddy Sanders! I'll get down to the negatives first, because I do like to always leave on a good note. This movie was filled with "sexist" and "double standards" and it's repeated over and over again. For example, there are loads of scene where you hear things like "We better not do that, because they're females. We only do that to men." There's comments like that throughout the entire film. It got old fairly quickly. The film is done exactly like the first one. They use the same jokes, the same ideas as before. I guess, for some it isn't a bad thing, but I personally wanted something new. Shelly (Chloë Grace Moretz's) character was all over the place. One minute she seemed liked this nice, beautiful, well respected girl who just wanted to start a party to feel good, then all of a sudden she turns into this evil, selfish, know it all person who just does not give a damn about anybody. They needed to decide who her character was from the start, not change her around halfway through just for the sake of being a bad neighbour!

There are jokes in there that do work as 2 examples of Seth Rogen making a trip to the Sydney Opera House in Australia or Jimmy's clown laugh. Rose Byrne gets into character really well yet again. She provides a few laugh out loud jokes. Zac Efron returns to help the neighbours and, of course to show off his body once again! All in all, there are a lot of good jokes in this movie, but there's also a lot that didn't work and could have been done better! All in all, it's a decent film, but I wouldn't pay to watch it again. 5/10 2/5 stars.

Following the success of Bad Neighbours, which grossed $270 million worldwide on just an $18 million budget, a sequel was something of an inevitability. When a film performs so well at the box office and is also as entertaining as Bad Neighbours managed to be the only question would be could the cast and crew create a sequel of superior or equal quality?

We re-join Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne), pregnant with their second child, a couple of years after the events of the first film. They have just agreed a deal to sell their house, under the obligation that the new buyers have a 30 day period to back out of the purchase should anything go array. At the same time Shelby (Chloe Grace Moretz) and a group of her friends move into the house next door to form a hard-partying sorority, Kappa Nu. Things are complicated further when Teddy (Zac Efron), leader of the fraternity from the first film, returns to assist Shelby in forming a successful sorority as retribution for his past grievances with Mac and Kelly.

Whilst it is pleasant to see a film attempt to challenge the male- centric domination of certain establishments across the educational system, it is repeatedly brought up that fraternities are allowed to host parties whilst sororities cannot, the attempts to highlight sexism and prejudices within the collegial system are undermined by the limited scope of the movie. Bad Neighbours 2 can't help but feel like a re-tread of the first film, only this time attempting to highlight certain unfair and unwarranted treatment that women can still face. This isn't a negative but there isn't enough new material to keep the action fresh. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are a pair of the most charming actors working today and I wish Byrne had been given more content with which to showcase her talents. As much as I enjoy Rogen's energetic displays one of my favourite aspects of the first film was Byrne's performance and I felt that with so many different characters now in the sequel she was given the short end of the stick whilst others got a more prominent focus. Zac Efron had something of a breakout role with the first film, establishing himself as a talented comedic actor, this time round having seen what he can do his performance is a little bit underwhelming though it may be that the material he is working with is somewhat limited. Whist the previous film felt very fluid this sequel feels like a series of sequences that were written first, with a connecting line constructed as an afterthought. The two writers from the previous feature (Andrew J. Cohen & Brendan O'Brien) are again credited, but with three other writers also receiving credit (Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg & director Nicholas Stoller) which may explain the sense of in-coordination the movie has at times. The newcomers of the sorority are somewhat of a mixed bag humour wise. Moretz doesn't really get much comedic material with her actions carrying the drama of the film, her constant battle to maintain a sorority without having to resort to conforming to male expectancy of what a sorority should be is admirable, but It would have been nice for her to have a few more comic moments that maybe defined her character a little more beyond her battle for individualism.

After all is said Bad Neighbours 2 has a few funny gags, and some charming characters, but is not as entertaining or prolific as its predecessor. As a passable 90 minute romp you could do worse, or if you haven't seen the first Bad Neighbours just watch that instead as it's a lot funnier.

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