Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016)

[Ezen Baklattan]

Review, Discuss, Debate, Celebrate, Whatever your heart desires.

[MovieGuyKyle17]

Neighbors 2 is a surprisingly good sequel to a movie I feel that really didn't need a sequel. The premise is pretty simple, but the one thing that really stood out for me is how this film puts a light on feminism and how college girls are treated compared to college boys. The film does an excellent job managing it without going into preachy mode. The film is pretty funny and even though there are a few moments where the film suffers a lack of logic, the laughs are good enough over the full length of the film that you can overlook it. I personally like this film more then the first film.
Grade: B+

 

[Water Bottle]

Neighbors 2 is really funny when it's funny and really dead when it's not. The ending was also a bit long: I didn't need every single "plot thread" tied up loosely. I enjoyed myself. Just like the first movie, it kinda surprises you how funny it's simple premise can be.

 

B

[Maxmoser3]

i liked this sequel, I thought it was pretty funny and had lots of funny moments I also enjoyed the sorioty minions moment, and other stuff. Overall solid comedy sequel, I liked it. Grade:B+.

[Blankments]

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is better than it has any right to be, but unfortunately, that's not enough. The repeat of the original's plot should be annoying, but it's not. It's got a decent amount of laughs, including one outrageous setpiece set to a marching band cover of "Black Skinhead" and a really delightful sequence featuring criminally underused Hannibal Burress and Jerrod Carmichael. Efron also is really fantastic, stealing the show in a way no one could have expected. This is his movie through and through. Barinholtz also steals scenes in a similar manner to the first film, such as the aforementioned "Black Skinhead" sequence.

 

However, this sequel forgets completely on how the original film worked: its characters. Despite its somewhat generic premise, Neighbors had well fleshed-out characters for a comedy with intriguing dynamics. Neighbors 2 chooses to write out Dave Franco's character in a way that feels oddly homophobic despite its surface-level progressive ideals, and also underuses Rose Byrne, despite her being the best aspect of the first film. The dynamics of the sorority are never as well defined as the fraternity in the first movie, and none of them are really characters with the exception of Chloe Grace Moretz's Shelby.

 

This all leads to an underwhelming climax that feels more like the end of the second act. The movie ends abruptly with bizarrely simple answers to big character-based questions, and it's just an incredible disappointment. Perhaps this third act could've worked more if there was better attention given to Byrne and Rogen's arc, which is pretty half-baked compared to the other arcs in the film. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is good for some laughs, but ultimately disappoints to the standards of both the original film and good R-rated comedies in general. D+

[Kvikk Lunsj]

Enjoyable movie with lot of good moments. I enjoy the films take on gay rights and female rights.  Seth Rogen and Zack Effron have great chemistry. Sadly some of the new characters are forgetbael besude Chloe Grace Moretz no one else in the sorority is given a role.  

2.5/5 

Edited May 23, 2016 by Dexter of Suburbia

[filmlover]

Enjoyable and amusing but ultimately disposable sequel. Not anywhere nearly as good as the first movie. B-

[CJohn]

I would put it on the same level as the first. Both are fun times at the movies and I enjoyed them for what they are. 

[The Panda]

I enjoyed the movie, it's by no means anything memorable, but it's a fun flick to go see with your friends or pop on when it hits Neftlix.  There's a nice amount of laughs in the movie, and it does a decent job making a fun sequel out of something that should have felt like a lame rehash.  Not as good as the first, but still a funny movie.  B-

[somebody85]

Neighbors 2 should have been called Agendas Rising not Sorority Rising. It's like tumblrs wet dream and some of the dialogue makes it unwatchable. It's cool when movies smartly incorporate these themes into them and don't just throw them in your face. But that doesn't happen in this case. Words like sexist and feminist are used every other five minutes in this film. Along with that, a main character who wasn't gay (and showed no signs of being gay - he fought his best friend over a girl) in the original suddenly is now. Yep it's all here.

 

News flash Hollyweird you can push this "sexism is bad" message without wearing it like a badge of honor. The frat party the girls go to is like something out of a bad PSA. It's completely hyperbole and unbelievable. Right from the second they walk through the door, I was rolling my eyes (something that's happened a lot this summer). Every guy in the house is eyeing the girls like meat and the only dialogue is "Want to go upstairs and fuck?" After this random frat guy says this brilliant line, the camera zooms to the top of the stairs on a huge penis neon lamp saying "This way to the promise land". Yes, it's that obvious.

 

For every funny scene in Neighbors 2 there's multiple scenes that you have to sit through where characters literally do nothing but preach. I truly hope this is not a sign of things to come man. Amazing movies like The Breakfast Club could never be made today. Despite giving some negative reviews, I love movies and don't like seeing this political stuff being brought into what should be a dumb comedy. There's even a scene in this where characters dress up like Hillary Clinton as part of a theme (including Zac Efron).

Zootopia incorporates the many real life themes it tackled with grace, Neighbors 2 does not.

Example: The girls throw used bloody tampons at Seth Rogens house. When someone calls that disgusting and over the line, the girls accuse him of being sexist because he thinks the same thing is funny if it were a bag of dicks. His dialogue is "Oh..oh I guess you guys are right. I never thought of it that way. That is wrong."

That's really how preachy this movie is. Again it will be tumblrs favorite movie of 2016.

God man, this summer sucks. I just wanted a dumb comedy. Instead I got characters spouting dialogue from a really annoying Buzzfeed comments section. 

If you are able to ignore all of that, you might enjoy some of the gags. Good luck, because it's a major part of the plot and no I don't think they were making fun of these themes. I've seen people talk exactly like Chloe Grace Moretz character in real life.

Edited June 20, 2016 by somebody85

[cannastop]

Never thought I'd see someone compare Zootopia to an R-rated Seth Rogen comedy.

[somebody85]

On 5/20/2016 at 9:04 PM, MovieGuyKyle17 said:

The film does an excellent job managing it without going into preachy mode. 

 

Man I strongly strongly disagree. I felt like I was being preached to whenever Chloe Grace Moretz character was on screen. So much so that I was distracted from actually enjoying any of the comedy in the movie. 
 

Some people say Tommorowland was preachy with it's environmental message in the last act....that was nothing compared to this movie.

I nearly turned it off right after the girls accused Efron as being sexist after that tampon scene. That's as preachy as it gets.

Edited June 20, 2016 by somebody85

[somebody85]

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

Never thought I'd see someone compare Zootopia to an R-rated Seth Rogen comedy.

Zootopia handled real issues going on such as race, xenophobia/refugee crisis and feminism inside a kids movie. The writers cleverly incorporated these complex themes into the story without pointing at itself saying "Hey, look at me! I'm progressive!"

It wasn't preachy. Neighbors 2 is the exact opposite. The reason the girls want to create a sorority in the first place is because men can throw parties and they can't. The dean (Lisa Kudrow) can't shut the house down no matter what they do over fear of being called sexist by the press. 

One of the main members from the fraternity in the first movie is now gay and about to be married. That's all well and good but in the first movie the big conflict at the end that nearly broke up the fraternity was Zac Efron kissing the girl he really liked. There wasn't any signs that his character was gay at all. The only thing that remotely resembled this change was that he could get a boner whenever he wanted.

So that's all changed to 2016 here with a throwaway line "We all experimented in college. I remember you used to eat lots of pussy."

So not only are the sorority girls spouting off about feminism and sexism every other scene but they also have a character change sexuality out of nowhere just for the hell out of it. 

Edited June 20, 2016 by somebody85

[Goffe]

Trash. One of the year's worst.