Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

It is clear that a moderately successful Neighbors, based on a conflict between a young couple and their fraternity neighbor would necessarily result in a sequel conflict between same couple and sorority neighbor. So the existence of the film does not surprise or bother me. For a plot, young couple Rogan/Byrne are selling their house and enter a 30 day escrow period. At the same time, a group of college freshmen girls decide to rent the former frat house to start a new sorority. The basic conflict is over whether the girls will cause the new buyers to cancel escrow and opt of the sale. The real story here is what I might refer to as Fake Feminism. The girls suggest that they are demonstrating empowerment and strength by going on their own, against the greek system. Intertwine this with a millennial mentality. So why is it Fake Feminism. The girls portrayed in the film are college freshmen that demonstrate no intelligence. They need to be portrayed as these completely inane women in the first place in order to be able to, for the film, have some upward trajectory. A truly feminist film would not need this starting point. You could start with strong, intelligent 18-year old college freshman that have an idea about their skill set and what is possible in life, and a realistic idea of what can be learned. Then the plot would need to develop to allow them to grow even more. But this is not easy to write. I wondered in the first film if I was just aged out of the target demographic. But for this one, even with some funny moments, it sends a message that is mostly wrong, and probably just offensive. It would be interesting to show this to a group of high school senior girls or college freshmen girls and see what they think about the portrayal.

Normally, the only way to get one star is if I walk out of a film, but in this case the message has earned
1 star (out of 5)