Thursday, September 08, 2016

Movie review - "Bad Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising" (2015) ***1/2

This wasn't as popular at the first. In part I think because it felt unnecessary - the first one had a point, in that Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne didn't want to be old and Zac Effron didn't want to grow up. So they're going back to the same old well. (It probably wasn't a good idea to start with the gag of Rogen and Byrne having odd sex again.)

However they've given it a fresh feminist twist by basing it around some girls who want a sorority because they're not allowed to party the way they want. There's some solid satire, with a real point, about the lecherous behaviour of boys and the importance of female friendship. (Also on a progressive note it was great how Effron was so matter of fact about the sexuality of old mate James Franco).

The teen boy audience who went to see the first one may not have enjoyed how they were mocked in this - maybe it would have done better if say there had been a college student who fell in love with one of the girls, or at least befriended them. I was also hoping for an older generation appearance - say Rogen's dad played by James Caan, a hard core partier or something (like Sean Connery in the third Indy film) But I'm fan fictioning now.

This is very funny. There are some brilliant jokes, and I found the script well structured. It lacks the freshness and energy of the first but was enjoyable.

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