Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) Movie Review

During game seven of the NBA Western Conference Finals this year, Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors (who was losing at the time), pulls his best player Stephen Curry to the side and says, "You're doing too much." I feel like at some point during the production of Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, someone should have had a sidebar with director Nicholas Stoller and conveyed the same message. Starring a hefty majority of the cast from the original movie along with some new faces, this film had way too many swings-and-misses for me to recommend seeing it in theaters.

The Radners (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) have lived in their neighborhood for long enough to survive a rowdy frat and raise their 2 1/2 year-old daughter. New problems (well, newish) occur for them as a sorority moves in next door while the Radners are in the process of trying to sell their house. They have thirty days to either get the sorority to keep it down or get them kicked out of the house altogether.

The situations these rivals find themselves in are not only ridiculous but flat-out preposterous. I kept asking myself repeatedly, "Why aren't these people calling the cops?" I can think of at least eight felonies the head sister Shelby (Chloe Grace Moretz) committed alone. Yet, for the sake of advancing the plot, the sorority's actions became a hodgepodge of one unfunny shenanigan after the other. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for suspending my disbelief while watching a movie. However, when over-the-top becomes just-plain-stupid, I'm over it. Maybe my mindset would have changed had the movie been funnier. Or even somewhat original for that matter. Instead of dealing with a bunch of frat boys that love to party and cause a scene, instead you're now dealing with sorority girls that love to party and...well, you see where this is going. Where's the creativity? I would have been more interested had something like a carnival moved next door. Or maybe a daycare from hell. Anything but what you've already done.

At the end of the day, the film suffers from terrible motives. While I wasn't necessarily in love with the motive behind Shere Khan's desire to torment Mowgli in The Jungle Book, it wasn't enough to destroy an otherwise quality movie. In Neighbors 2, on the other hand, things escalate way beyond where they need to be. In a scene fairly early on in the movie, the Radners go over to the sorority house to politely ask the sisters to keep it down for thirty days as they are in the process of selling their house. Shelby declines because, well, it's a sorority house and that's what sororities do: party. But thirty days, though? Even eighteen-year-olds are more reasonable than that.

On the upside, there are some quality funny moments that make for big laughs. Unfortunately, they just come too few and far between. It's with regret that I have to fairly score this movie at a 46.