(Photo credit: themoviewaffler.com)
By Ayesha Sayed
Starring: Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne
Director: Nick Stoller
Rating 2/5
The film sees Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne), settling into their home with their baby, ready to begin their new journey of parenthood. Their peacefulness is quickly shattered as the house next door becomes home to a loud and disruptive college fraternity, led by the character of Teddy (Zac Efron). This results in a battle between the neighbours which spirals out of control.
I was disappointed to find that the film did not match up to my expectations. As an easily amused person and lover of light-hearted comedies, I simply did not find Bad Neighbours funny. Although Efron and Dave Franco provided unlimited eye-candy throughout, their characters were barely likeable. I assume this was deliberate yet, even the protagonist played by Rogen was hardly better. He did have a few funny moments however, they were quickly diluted by Byrne’s lesser ability to play a comic role.
The constant back and forth scheming between the neighbours created extreme slapstick humour. Yet, there was no real structure to the pranks – just one after another, mixed with crude jokes and no real character development.
Seeing Zac Efron shirtless was probably the real highlight of the film but apart from that, it was a bit of a time waste. Comedy is very subjective so I guess a lot of you would perhaps find it funnier than I did, but personally I would not recommend it to many.
Devise 