Neighbors

A middle-class couple (Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne) try to stay cool when a party-hearty fraternity (led by Zac Efron) moves in next door, but hard feelings sprout and escalate into an all-out war. This one goes straight onto the guilty-pleasures list. The script by first-timers Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien is short on logic, with important scenes apparently never written, never filmed or left on the cutting-room floor. Director Nicholas Stoller keeps the joke parade rolling but can't iron out the script's wrinkles. Rogen's comic-schlub shtick is well-deployed, and Byrne shows a nice flair for comedy, while Efron's earnest performance feels piped in from a different movie. Still, enough of the jokes land to make the movie pretty funny, even with enough misfires to put the “guilt” in guilty pleasure.