Review: 'Neighbors 2' is a funny but ill-conceived retread

In Nicholas Stoller's sequel to his 2014 "Neighbors," even the with-it girls — the ones too freethinking to join a cookie-cutter sorority — are so dumb they make the bros in the first movie look like elder statesmen.

[...] in their awkward attempt to shoehorn these kids into the first pic's formula, Stoller and his writing collaborators care far less about creating believable characters than getting to the next laugh.

[...] viewers prone to worries about Hollywood's treatment of women — a fair chunk of whom are young students this film wants to attract — may be laughing less loudly than those around them.

A set piece involving a massive weed heist at a tailgate party provides weird madcap action, and yes, it offers the frequently shirtless Efron the opportunity to strip-tease for panting college girls.

[...] especially in a sequel that deprives its adult female lead of the comic opportunities she did so well with in the first film, their depiction here feels like a provocation to any woman or man in the crowd who yearns for more sentient female characters in pop culture.

Sorority Rising, a Universal release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for crude sexual content including brief graphic nudity, language throughout, drug use and teen partying.