Bad Neighbours [MA]

Mac and Kelly are a new family, with little Stella taking up a lot of their time and energy. Already struggling to adapt to real adult life, the lives of Mac and Kelly are thrown into further disarray when a fraternity moves into the neighbourhood… right next door. The couple at first try to keep to the friendly and cool neighbours routine, but when their requests for the frats to keep the noise down get neglected they are forced to go back on their word and call the cops. So begins a turf war as old as the hills: kids vs. the adults. Who will win? 

I was admittedly really quite psyched for this movie because it’s Seth Rogan and Zac Efron. I’ll admit that I blush just that little bit when I admit that I don’t mind the odd dose of Zac baby, but really it’s because I think he’s a good actor and he’s not falling into the type-cast trap, which is always something to applaud. There are some very funny moments in this movie and the elements of the story are there and have the potential to really work, but ultimately this was an example of a good idea that just was weakly executed. 

Mac and Kelly are a new family, with little Stella taking up a lot of their time and energy. Already struggling to adapt to real adult life, the lives of Mac and Kelly are thrown into further disarray when a fraternity moves into the neighbourhood… right next door. The couple at first try to keep to the friendly and cool neighbours routine, but when their requests for the frats to keep the noise down get neglected they are forced to go back on their word and call the cops. So begins a turf war as old as the hills: kids vs. the adults. Who will win? 

For me, the disappointment falls to the writing. There are some very nice themes and things going on in this film: the fear of growing up, the fear of losing life, the fear of life changing, and all such things along those lines. The movie definitely had potential. But writers Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O’Brien, it seemed to me, struggled with ways to really make these themes shine. To be fair, we could equate this with the confines of the genre and by extension the subgenre of comedy that we’ve got going here, but the film still doesn’t quite hit the mark despite the classic film and sex commentaries from Seth Rogan (which were really fresher in Knocked Up) and the Aussie representation from Rose Byrne. 

I definitely would have liked to see Zac apply himself a little bit more; his character seemed to be one that was just unsure. Who knows, this could have been what everyone was after and if that be the case Efron does a good job, but I think he could have been really funny and should have really stepped up to the mark and have it out with Rogen comically. 

Starring Dave Franco, Carla Gallo, Ike Barinholtz, Brian Huskey, Halston Sage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jerrod Carmichael, and Lisa Kudrow, Bad Neighbours is a rather mediocre movie that started out with so much potential but just couldn’t quite get itself to a standing position. Filled with romance, bromance, sex, drugs, drama, and comedy, there were moments that I really enjoyed, like the Batman vs. Batman sequence with Zac channelling Christian Bale and Seth channelling Michael Keaton, but ultimately it was a movie that was lacking.