Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

The married couple from 2014’s Neighbors (Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne) are having trouble again, this time with a new sorority led by a party-hearty fugitive (Chloë Grace Moretz) from a group of smug little prisses. Neighbors was a guilty pleasure; in the sequel it’s guilt 10, pleasure zero. This is a movie for people who thought The Hangover was too subtle and genteel. Director Nicholas Stoller and four co-writers (Andrew J. Cohen, Brendan O’Brien, Evan Goldberg and Rogen) throw logic to the winds, and they’ll do anything for a laugh—anything, that is, except actually be funny. Zac Efron also gets sucked into the morass, and Kelsey Grammer, Selena Gomez, Lisa Kudrow, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and LL Cool J drop by for pointless cameos; they’re not funny either. “Rogen Sinking” would be a better subtitle. J.L.