Bad Neighbours 2
Don't Go! Floppy, futile, and fatally, faux-feminist.
Sorority girls vs beleaguered parents.
The first Bad Neighbours was an attempt at modernising the super-laddish frat house genre; a new generation’s National Lampoon’s Animal House or Old School. It mainly failed, with a theme that was 50% jokes about willies and 50% “daaaamn, look how hot that guy from High School Musical went and got”. As party-boy Teddy Sanders, Zac Efron played the hyper-tanned, hyper-toned, mainly-shirtless centre-piece of the film, flexing his way from tweenie idol to bone fide hunk-4-housewives. Despite that being its main achievement, the movie made $270 million, which means, as penance for those of us who watched it, a sequel was inevitable. Our equivalent of a naked walk through King’s Landing has arrived, and they've called it Bad Neighbours 2.
This time out, married couple Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen, This is the End; and Rose Byrne, Bridesmaids) are selling their house, now with two young kids in tow. Faced with a 30-day escrow period, they need a smooth month to ensure the buyers remain happy with the place and close the deal. Enter Kappa Nu. The brainchild of burgeoning feminist-of-sorts, Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz, Kick Ass), it’s a sorority aiming to party hard as the boys, and do it with their clothes on; reversing the traditional sexism of college housing. The practicalities of setting up shop initially look to be unassailable, until Shelby has a chance meeting with the recently-unemployed Teddy. Seeing the opportunity to be “valued” and wreak revenge on the Radners, he quickly offers his services as a consultant and Kappa Nu installs itself in his old frat house. With a lary sorority moving in next-door and their house sale at risk, Mac and Kelly try a series of tricks to shut Kappa Nu down. Things aren’t going their way until Teddy switches sides and starts helping them to defeat the monster he helped to create. Yes, it’s pretty much the same movie as Bad Neighbours.
Or is it? After it gets over the vulgar hump of a sex plus morning sickness joke, it begins less predictably than its puerile predecessor: subversive and topical, with smart and sly digs at millennials, the fraternity system, sexism, gay stereotyping and racist policing. When Teddy announces, “Don’t call them hoes, that’s not cool anymore”, with barely a hint of humour, it even threatens to be meaningful; marking a transition from a comedic tradition of perpetuating misogyny to the beginnings of putting it down.
Or is it? After it gets over the vulgar hump of a sex plus morning sickness joke, it begins less predictably than its puerile predecessor: subversive and topical, with smart and sly digs at millennials, the fraternity system, sexism, gay stereotyping and racist policing. When Teddy announces, “Don’t call them hoes, that’s not cool anymore”, with barely a hint of humour, it even threatens to be meaningful; marking a transition from a comedic tradition of perpetuating misogyny to the beginnings of putting it down.
But painfully, like a seventeen-year-old discovering rum for the first time, after 30 minutes, the good times suddenly regress into depressing, booze-drenched idiocy. Numbed of ideas, neither Efron’s oily torso nor a series of lame physical gags can pick it up off the floor. By the end, its trousers of initial promise are soiled with disappointment. The world is ready for a clever, modern, anti-sexism comedy. This is simply not it. There are a couple of minor laughs, but nothing that stops it from being the status quo dressed up in an ill-fitting mini-skirt. The claim that the skirt is in any way feminist makes it all the worse. Perhaps the irony that it was written by five men (five men!) tells you everything you need to know, both why a comedy about sexism lost its way and the real-life, male-orientated world that Bad Neighbours 2 is purporting to challenge. Rather than starting something new, it confirms that the reign of Judd Apatow-style comedy, born of Anchorman (2004) and last mastered in Bridesmaids (2011), has truly come to an end.
So don’t go. If you feel so inclined, watch the first half-hour on Netflix when it arrives. Otherwise, grow your hedges high and ignore those Bad Neighbours 2.
So don’t go. If you feel so inclined, watch the first half-hour on Netflix when it arrives. Otherwise, grow your hedges high and ignore those Bad Neighbours 2.
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