The most that ought to be required of a comedy is that it makes you laugh. So much can be overlooked if a film makes you laugh. Great comedies might aspire to more than just that, and might succeed as great movies as a result; Neighbours aspires to more than the average contemporary American comedy, if only a little more, and it's not a great movie. It's passable. It's enjoyable. It's redundant, or at least a published report on it is, but it amounts to a good time at the movies nonetheless. I valued the leanness of its premise, and the inventiveness of its scenarios. I valued the parodical take on not just fraternity culture but fraternity conventions. I valued the film's acknowledgement of its male-dominated conceit and the increased attention given to Rose Byrne's character. Byrne has worked her way into an enviable position in her profession, wherein she is still the one with nothing to prove in her roles; she's the surprise standout you saw coming, again. I valued the commitment to genuine debauchery, not some attenuated teen-friendly version of it, within reason, alas. And that's a pretty good summation of Neighbours: 'within reason'. Just because it's better doesn't make it the best. Just because its aspirations are to be great doesn't make it great. It's like most of the good things you expect from a film like this and few of the bad, but that whole lot of good will only ever get you so far. Had Neighbours been released ten years ago, it could have been recognised as a classic. As the extension of all those good things from all those other movies, it's, well, good. It makes you laugh. And that's the most that ought to be required of a comedy, isn't it?
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