Neighbors

There are a lot of dicks in this movie. Like a TON of dicks. Big dicks. Little dicks. Short dicks. Long dicks. Dick, dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks. There’s also a really cute baby. But mostly a bunch of dicks.

Besides all the genitals, there is also a movie under there somewhere. If you’ve seen the previews, or the unending commercials, you pretty much know exactly what the plot is. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are a young couple with a new baby. They’ve chucked their old life of partying and screwing in weird places for a house in the suburbs. And there comes the frat house. And they move in right next door. Talk about awkward situations!

So we get to watch Rogen and Rose and their X-Games attire from their earlier years saunter over to greet their new neighbors in one of the more cringe-worthy scenes I’ve seen in a while. As they sit there and basically try to tell the frat to keep down the noise while mimicking Eminem — or maybe Fred Durst, they’re stared at by the somewhat beautiful Zac Efron as if they’re a lower form of life. Sorry, the kid is downright pretty. Rogen, not as much. Shit goes well. The boys invite them to a party and for some reason Rogen goes insane and takes tons of ‘shrooms and whatnot and everything is great. Oh, and dicks. Until it isn’t. And then there’s war!

It’s funny, though. The less interesting part of the movie is the war between the boys and the couple. The more interesting part is that Seth Rogen is in a movie that actually has heart. A movie in which the female lead isn’t a shrewy asshole. Despite the frat tearing at their nerves, the couple is a loving, normal couple. They actually seem — for a couple with a baby in the ‘burbs — like someone you might want to hang out with. Or at least someone you might know. Not the cartoon characters that are too often the norm in these dick movies.

All that said, there are some serious plot issues with this thing. And this me just being an asshole, but generally you’d know when buying a house that the house next door is zoned for fraternity use. Also, the fraternity brothers refer to all sorts of things during the film as if they’d been living in that house for years, despite only living there for a short time. Plus, they’ve somehow rigged all sorts of custom stuff in and around the house and have decorated it in a way that there’s no way could have happened in such a short time living there. Not to mention there are like ten guys in the fraternity. Having been in a house myself, this would be the lamest fraternity in the world. Or perhaps this is the world’s smallest college, so maybe ten guys is like one-tenth of the population? In any case, this is a gross-out comedy, so why do I care? Because I do. And it was distracting.

That all said, I did actually LOL a few times. Hannibal Buress plays a cop in the movie. He’s a guy whose name I’ve heard a bunch, but wasn’t familiar with. We thought maybe he was a real cop who they pulled off the street, as he’s so awesomely deadpan and funny that it didn’t seem like he was acting. Funny dude. In fact a bunch of the side players (with the exception of that annoying-ass Mise en Place douche) are actually given some of the best lines and fill out the main cast well. And, I gotta say, Rose Bryne was very charismatic and pretty funny as well. In fact, everyone was pretty funny (though Dave Franco has a super-punchable face), but I could have just done with less penis, less squirting breast milk and maybe a couple less psychotropics.