★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Nicholas Stoller’s sequel to 2014’s leery, rowdy frat comedy
is a surprisingly good-natured and progressive success. Seth Rogen and Rose
Byrne’s Mac and Kelly are on the cusp of selling their home when a sorority led
by Shelby (Chlöe Grace Moretz) moves in next door. Determined to end the sexist
rule forbidding sororities from hosting their own nightlife, Shelby enlists ex-frat
boy Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron) to help get the party started. Before long, he is
dropped from the ranks and vows to help Mac and Kelly stave off the girls’
antics long enough to help get their house sold.
Seth Rogen has always been a bit of a deal-breaker for me,
but this is easily the most bearable he’s been in a role that isn’t a cameo. Zac Efron’s charm is properly utilised for the first time in way too long, rising
above the bland hulk of the first Bad
Neighbours and the gurning prettyboy of Dirty
Grandpa, while Moretz’ lively “sisters doing it for themselves” stuff is a hearty
change of pace from her boringly traditional female role in YA dud The Fifth Wave. The whole bunch stick
mostly to slapstick and crude body humour, which means the back-and-forth improv
shtick of the previous instalment takes a merciful back seat. There are still odd
languours between shipments of comedy, though one is offset by a perfectly-delivered
blanch gag.
That’s not to say it’s an entirely low-brow affair: Teddy’s referrals
to the glory days of ‘hoe parties’ are met with appropriate derision, there’s a
refreshing alteration of which gender becomes objectified for the sake of
comedy, and a smattering of the sorority chuckles have topical bite. There’s
massive relief when the “that’s not okay, bro” attitude isn’t thrown away in
the third act for a hasty, schmaltzy do-over (though there is a fine layer of
cheese draped over the epilogue).
So while it is a smidge too long and occasionally topples
over into Hangover 2 territory (read:
if the joke isn’t funny, just say it louder), it goes a long way to undoing any
bad feeling towards the first by mixing decent slapstick with a healthy helping
of anti-frat sentiment: cheerful, harmless fun.
