My parents love each other, and I think it's hilarious.

Bad Neighbours

(aka Neighbors)

(2014)

The mystifying career of Seth Rogen continues its ascendency. I’d suggest he had honed playing a boorish oaf to the point of perfection, but since he is a boorish oaf there’s no real effort involved. Most mystifying of the many mystifying aspects of Bad Neighbours (Neighbors in the US, perhaps because all Neighbours are bad there, so they didn’t need to qualify the title, or because they actually thought UK and Australian viewers might think this was the big screen version of the soap, the same way Avengers Assemble might have been otherwise mistaken for the return of John Steed and Mrs Peel) is the notion that Rogen could possibly be married to Rose Byrne.

Of course, Rogen has history with impossibly out-of-his-league co-stars (Katherine Heigl), and, to be fair to him, he isn’t shy about putting his unenviable body out there as an object of ridicule. I wish he was. Unattractive bodies are usually only funny if the wearer of said unattractive body is funny. Rogen’s perpetual humour operandi is to make unfunny jokes about bodily functions, mostly his cock, or someone else’s cock, homophobic or sexist remarks that he thinks are okay because he’s kind-of sort-of self-aware, and, most of all, weed. Did you know he loves it? Really, really loves it? This may be why his quality control is negligible. Everything is so much funnier when you’re stoned, you see.

Rogen’s best bud (not in a gay way, though), the ubiquitous James Franco doesn’t appear this time out. Instead, Rogen has to do for James’ creepy younger brother Dave. He’s Pete, vice-president of Delta Psi Beta, a college fraternity that moves in next door to Mac (Rogen) and Kelly Radner (Byrne). Pete can summon an instant erection as a party trick. President of the fraternity is Teddy (Zac Effron, who might have been down the gym a bit before making the movie. I’m not quite sure). Having a baby and a job, and needing to sleep to boot, Mac and Kelly understandably are none-too chuffed at the all-night parties that ensue, so call the police when Teddy fails to keep the noise down. Which results in all-out war being waged.

Under normal circumstances there would be no question that sympathies lie with the married couple, but normal circumstances wouldn’t include schlubby Rogen. Seth reminds us straight away what a fantastic comedian he is by launching into a litany of improvised yuks that include Batman impressions, peeing with Effron, lying naked on top of Byrne, and generally being objectionably coarse and uncouth. One can only assume Byrne is a trooper to put up with all this, a predominately male set with no end of laddish antics. On the other hand, she’s Australian so she probably fitted right in.

So it’s a close thing, but these frat kids are still a bunch of unholy shits (as is evidenced by their treatment of one of their least cool and therfore most-abused members, nicknamed Assjuice). When war escalates, Mac floods their basement and Kelly (in one of the few sequences that is actually smartly conceived) induces Pete to cop off with Teddy’s girlfriend. The fraternity retaliate by placing car airbags around the house, in places an unsuspecting baby might well rest for a moment. The frat boys aren’t the most irresponsible kids on the block, however, as Mac and Kelly are the kind of parents who leave their baby alone in the house all night (baby monitor or no). This might be a blessing, as any baby that doesn’t have to grow up being gurned and hucked at by Rogen is a fortunate baby.

This being a post-Apatow comedy of the gross-out oeuvre, and consequently boundary pushing in the most tiresome ways (which roughly means, the more outrageous it is, the funnier it is), there are no end of penis and bodily function gags. The guys all make dildos and sell them for big bucks! Rogen and Effron have a fight with them! The baby nearly eats a condom and then the doctor at the hospital jokes, “Your baby has HIV!” (I know, right, because only squares wouldn’t find that a hoot). Christopher Mintz-Plasse (he had to turn up, didn’t he?) has a extremely long penis, which Carlo Gallo wears as a necklace. Absolutely priceless! An extended scene involving Mac milking Kelly features the odd mildly funny line, but wears the patience by going on for way too long.

On the plus side, Lisa Kudrow consistently raises the laugh bar in her cameo as the dean of the university, Byrne should do more comedy, and Hannibal Buress gets to indulge a string of Garfield jokes (“I hate Monday. I love lasagne”) as Officer Watkins and there’s a Six Million Dollar Man sound effect. Director Nicholas Stoller’s career actually seems on the descendent quality-wise (no mean feat since he wrote Gulliver’s Travels) and hitching himself to Rogen’s train does him absolutely no favours. Despite Bad Neighbours featuring no likeable characters it somehow manages to conclude with everyone becoming best of pals. They all mean well really. This is sloppy, coarse and moronic. The usual Seth Rogen movie, basically.

Comments

He’s probably paranoid, high-strung, doesn’t like daylight. You know, has a lot of crumbs in his beard, if he has a beard.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) (SPOILERS) I’d like to report I had a blast with Godzilla vs. Kong . It’s lighter on its oversized, city-stomping feet than its slog of a MonsterVerse predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and there are flashes of visual inspiration along with several engaging core ideas (which, to be fair, the series had already laid the seeds for). But this sequel still stumbles in its chief task: assembling an engaging, lively story that successfully integrates both tiny humans and towering titans.

Roswell was a smokescreen, we've had a half a dozen better salvage operations.

The X-Files 1.24: The Erlenmeyer Flask The Erlenmeyer Flask makes for a fast-paced, tense and eventful ride, but does it make any sense? That less than mattered at the time, but revisiting the mythology arc (for probably the fourth or fifth time) reveals increasingly tenuous internal coherence as the various conspiracy elements begin to pile up and the situations become ever-more convoluted. This will become the Chris Carter’s signature: don’t examine the details too closely, go with the flow. Trust Chris implicitly.

It's Dark Age, by Jupiter!

The Dig (2021) (SPOILERS) An account of the greatest archaeological find Britain would know until Professor Horner opened the barrow at Devil’s End. And should you scoff at such “ fiction ”, that’s nothing on this adaptation of John Preston’s 2007 novel concerning the Sutton Hoo excavations of the late 1930s. The Dig , as is the onus of any compelling fictional account, takes liberties with the source material, but the erring from the straight and narrow in this case is less an issue than the shift in focus from characters and elements successfully established during the first hour.

UFO IN MOSSINGHAM?

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2020) (SPOILERS) One might reasonably suggest the recourse of the ailing or desperate franchise is to resort, seemingly out of nowhere, to space aliens. Even Police Academy didn’t go that far (to Moscow, yes, but not to space). Perhaps animators think kids have no skills of discernment and will swallow any old sugar-coated crap. Perhaps they don’t, and they will. Ice Age had been enjoying absurd success until Collision Course sent Scrat spinning into the cosmos and grosses tumbled. Shaun the Sheep has been around for a quarter of a century, but this is only his second movie outing and already he’s pulling an E.T. on us. Of course, this may all be part of the grand scheme, and Nick Park is simply doing his bit to familiarise the tots in time for Project Blue Beam.

You stink, my friend.

Mulan (2020) (SPOILERS) Let that be a lesson to Disney. It’s a fool’s errand to try and beat the Chinese at their own game, no matter how painstakingly respectful – or rather, pandering – you are. Indeed, Mulan ’s abysmal $40m box office take in the country – where it did get a proper release, so no plandemic excuses can be cited – feels like a direct rebuke; don’t try and tell us how to suck eggs. There’s an additional explanation too, of course. That Mulan sucks.

By heaven, I’d thrash the life out of you… if I didn’t have to read the Nine O’Clock News.

The Green Man (1956) (SPOILERS) The Green movie from Launder and Gilliat starring Alastair Sim that isn’t Green for Danger. Which is to say, The Green Man can’t quite scale the heady heights of that decade-earlier murder mystery triumph, but neither is it any slouch. Sim is the antagonist this time – albeit a very affable, Sim-ish one – and his sometime protégée, a young George Cole, the hero. If the plot is entirely absurd, Robert Day’s movie wastes no time probing such insufficiencies, ensuring it is very funny, lively and beautifully performed.

Suspicions of destiny. We all have them. A deep, wordless knowledge that our time has come.

Damien: Omen II (1978) (SPOILERS) There’s an undercurrent of unfulfilled potential with the Omen series, an opportunity to explore the machinations of the Antichrist and his minions largely ignored in favour of Final Destination deaths every twenty minutes or so. Of the exploration there is, however, the better part is found in Damien: Omen II , where we’re privy to the parallel efforts of a twelve or thirteen-year-old Damien at military school and those of Thorn Industries. The natural home of the diabolical is, after all, big business. Consequently, while this sequel is much less slick than the original, it is also more engaging dramatically.

A subterranean Loch Ness Monster?

Doctor Who The Silurians No, I’m not going to refer to The Silurians as Doctor Who and the Silurians . I’m going to refer to it as Doctor Who and the Eocenes . The Silurians plays a blinder. Because both this and Inferno know the secret of an extended – some might say overlong – story is to keep the plot moving, they barely drag at all and are consequently much fleeter of foot than many a four parter. Unlike Malcolm Hulke’s sequel The Sea Devils , The Silurians has more than enough plot and deals it out judiciously (the plague, when it comes, kicks the story up a gear at the precarious burn-out stage of a typical four-plus parter). What’s most notable, though, is how engaging those first four episodes are, building the story slowly but absorbingly and with persuasive confidence.

Farewell, dear shithead, farewell.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) (SPOILERS) I saw Highlander II: The Quickening at the cinema. Yes, I actually paid money to see one of the worst mainstream sequels ever on the big screen. I didn’t bother investigating the Director’s Cut until now, since the movie struck me as entirely unsalvageable. I was sufficiently disenchanted with all things Highlander that I skipped the TV series and slipshod sequels, eventually catching Christopher Lambert’s last appearance as Connor MacLeod in Highlander: End Game by accident rather than design. But Highlander II ’s on YouTube , and the quality is decent, so maybe the Director’s Cut improve matters and is worth a reappraisal? Not really. It’s still a fundamentally, mystifyingly botched retcon enabling the further adventures of MacLeod, just not quite as transparently shredded in the editing room.

Well, I’ll be damned. It’s the gentleman guppy.

Waterworld (1995) (SPOILERS) The production and budgetary woes of “ Kevin’s Gate ” will forever overshadow the movie’s content (and while it may have been the most expensive movie ever to that point – adjusted for inflation, it seems only Cleopatra came close – it has since turned a profit). However, should you somehow manage to avoid the distraction of those legendary problems, the real qualitative concerns are sure to come sailing over the cognitive horizon eventually; Waterworld is just so damned derivative. It’s a seafaring Mad Max. Peter Rader, who first came up with the idea in 1986, admitted as much. David Twohy, who later came aboard, also cited Mad Max 2 ; that kind of rip-off aspect – Jaws birthing Piranha – makes it unsurprising Waterworld was once under consideration by Roger Corman (he couldn’t cost it cheaply enough). Ultimately, there’s never a sufficient sense the movie has managed to become its own thing. Which is a bummer, because it’s frequently quite good fun.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog