Bad Neighbours

Nicholas Stoller's last three films as director have been Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek and The Five Year Engagement, so you'll be unsurprised to hear that Bad Neighbours doesn't venture far from the formula inherent in those movies, i.e. bawdy humour, physical pratfalls, with a touch of human emotion thrown in. The set up is simple: A couple (Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne) with a young baby have their lives (well, their sleep patterns) turned upside down when the neighbours from hell move in next door to them. In this case said tormentors take the form of a college fraternity (led by Zac Efron) well known for their outrageous behaviour and parties. What starts off as mutual friendship between the houses, soon spills into all out war. As the poster aptly puts it: It's Family v Frat. The film is basically an assortment of, mainly funny, set pieces as the protagonists do their best to antagonise each other. Scripters Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien's attempts to add a dramatic touch by showing the strain that the situation is having on Rogan and Byrne's relationship doesn't really work (it hardly needs some party boys next door to exacerbate the pressure a young couple with their first child go through), plus Rogan as an actor just can't garner sympathy unlike, say, Stoller's old mucker Jason Segel can. This was a calculated approach by the writers as they felt things would have got too repetitive, but it's clear they would have got by on the gags alone, from some nice one-liners ("The old people have the upper hand!") to a Simpsons-esque scene where a doctor informs the couple that their baby may have HIV. On the acting front Byrne takes the plaudits, continuing to show she has great comic chops and even the usually painful Lisa Kudrow adds some laughs as a non-plussed college dean. If this is your type of comedy you'll come away happy, but Rogan's standard shtick is starting to outstay it's welcome and though this delivers exactly what you'd expect, Stoller's latest can't shake the feeling that we've done this dance many times already over the past few years. Rating: 7/10.