After Seth Rogen and buddies made last year's meta-comedy This Is the End, which combined a vulgar bro comedy with a critique of the same, I hoped that Rogen (who has shown his sensitive side in indies) would move on. Well, color me wrong. Nicholas Stoller's R-rated college kegger stars Rogen and Rose Byrne as new parents who engage in an all-out pranks war with the boozy frat house, headed by Zac Efron, that has moved in next door. It's Animal House + The Hangover + Ridiculousness – Efron's shirts = Same Stupid Jokes. Oops, my bad: Proving that there's always something new to be scraped out of the bottom of the comedy barrel, we get extended jokes about DIY dildos and milking your wife.
Besides the rampant vulgarity — never a substitute for wit, gentlemen! — the comedy fails because there isn't anybody to root for. The frat guys are obnoxious, and nobody wants to live next door to a bunch hooting drunkards. But the usually likable Rogen and Byrne are one-noted here as quite obnoxious, self-absorbed aging-hipsters-with-all-consuming-baby. In their own way, they're just as bratty and unappealing as the frat brothers. Maybe that's the point, but I was sure rooting for a giant flaming space rock, as previously seen in This Is the End, to take them all out.
