'Neighbors' Is Crude And Unusual, But Is It Funny Enough To Work?

By Victoria Pavlova in Movies / TV / Theatre on 07 May 2014

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

StumbleUpon

Fark

Comment

Follow Seth Rogen

Seth Rogen Zac Efron Rose Byrne

It's as crude as you might expect, but at least "Neighbors" has its leads going for it.

Neighbors is out in theaters this week – Friday, May 9 – meaning it’s just about time for the flood of reviews of Seth Rogen’s latest. In this one, Zac Efron gets to walk around without the burden of a shirt for half a movie as the head of a fraternity, which inexplicably moves into a suburban house. Rogen and Rose Byrne star as Mac and Kelly, new parents who go to war against the frat bros. It’s a party movie, starring Rogen and Zefron, so that already lumps it into the same category as things like Project X, Pineapple Express and last year’s This Is The End. But how does Neighbors rank on that spectrum?

Watch the red band trailer below - if you can stomach it.

Time’s Richard Corliss is less than impressed with Rogen and Co’s preferred brand of shock humor. He writes: “Screenwriters Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien (who worked in minor capacities on Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin) are fascinated by things that can expand to the bursting point — air bags, a mother’s breasts — but show no interest in plot plausibility.”

Seth Rogen on the set of Neighbors.

More: Seth Rogen's Neighbors: The Funniest Scene Involving An Air Bag Ever?

Us Weekly’s Mara Reinstein isn’t impressed with the premise either, calling it “as flimsy as a fake ID”. Zac Efron’s acting gets an honorable mention, as does Rogen’s “open and relaxed screen presence.” Even so, it’s not enough to save a movie that features a sequence, in which “Mac and Kelly's infant innocently puts a condom in her mouth on the driveway, prompting the pair to lose their minds because they think she might have contacted HIV.” Reinstein thinks these gags should have been left back in the 90s and she might be right – ultimately, it will be up to moviegoers to decide.

Zac Efron on the set of Neighbors

More: How Zac Efron's Cocaine Habit Spiralled On Neighbors Set

Meanwhile, reviews from the UK (where the film bears the alternative title Bad Neighbors) are a bit more favorable. The Guardian’s Henry Barnes notes the “wobbly” pacing and occasional “lazy gags,” but in the end describes the film as “an extremely funny comedy that pushes Rogen's instinctive good nature to the limit.”