Movie Review: Bad Neighbours

Shane | 14 May 2014 | Reply

Movie Review: Bad Neighbours
Starring Seth Rogen, Zac Efron and Rose Byrne.
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Reviewed by Shayne McGowan
8/10

Bad Neighbours is the new comedy from director Nicholas Stoller, and if you’re a fan of his previous work (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek) then this will be right up your alley.

When a noisy fraternity house takes up residence in a quiet suburban area, the new family next door decides to play dirty in order to remove the fraternity and restore the peace and quiet of the neighbourhood.

I had a lot of fun watching this one, and I could actually relate to parts of it too. No, I’ve never had a fraternity move in next door, or been a member of a fraternity, but I do have a new family, and some of what Rogen and Byrnes characters go through, are things that most, if not all young families experience.

As expected from a Seth Rogen vehicle, this movie is full of marijuana references and awkward sex scenes, but a lot of it actually serves the plot, rather than just being there for the sake of being there.

Aside from some killer one liners, there are some hilarious slapstick moments throughout Bad Neighbours, and one of, if not the funniest fight scenes of all time. How often do you see a movie fight that involves dildos, a trampoline and a ceiling fan?

With all the jokes aside, at its core, this film is actually about a young married couple coming to terms with the fact that they now have a child, and are no longer the life of the party.

I actually have to wonder if the film makers originally tried to get Katherine Heigl to star in the Rose Byrne role, because Bad Neighbours could work as a sequel to Knocked Up quite easily.