Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

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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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.

Honestly I don't understand why people hate this movie i thought it was hilarious and recommend watching it

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is the sequel to the hit Neighbors. It appeared obvious this film was greenlit as a sequel since the original was such a hit. This film does feel quite different but has some same elements. Overall, the entire plot about the girls sorority feels a little forced and played too hard for laughs. The problem is the female characters in the sorority weren't funny and the running joke was very forced and long running. After a while, we get used to it but it was too much and the entire "feminism" agenda was very obviously pushed. We are supposed to have sympathy towards them but nothing was there.

There are some decent laughs but overall nothing completely original and funny. This sequel is somewhat disappointing and felt unneeded in the end. This was a major box office under performance compared to the original and it waved off any possibility for a sequel. Some decent moments but the entire film isn't as great.