Preface

• So the other day I was looking through the list of movies I had seen thus far in 2015 and despite all the bad buzz a lot of movies had gotten, I realized that I haven’t seen many AWFUL movies.
• I’ve seen four movies so far that I would qualify as my Top 4 of the Year, as of now, and I’ve seen MANY mediocre, average, and meh movies.
• A LOT of those.
• But now there are two movies (including this one) that I can successfully say are pretty terrible…
• Not as bad as I thought though!

Premise

• So The Boy Next Door stars Jennifer Lopez as this single mom who is separated from her husband, he cheated on her, and she’s just trying to get her life back to normal.
• But then this charming young kid moves in next door, he and J-Lo hook up, and because she’s a teacher you know he’s gonna show up in her class the next day…
• Then stuff happens!
• That description may actually be a better representation of this movie than this movie is of this movie…

Cast and Characters

• Okay, I despised almost every character in this movie.
• I won’t say “hate” because I save that word for Transformers/Annie movies, but they were either bratty or dumb or just stereotyped.
• To my everlasting shame though, I will say in confidence: Jennifer Lopez was the best part of this movie, by far!
• Her character doesn’t have much to her, but J-Lo at least brought in a little bit of charm and you can see her playing this role well.
• Other than that, the kid she spends the night with looks like he’s 28 (and yeah they do explain he’s actually 20 so it isn’t THAT creepy but still he looks old) and he is a HORRIBLE actor.
• I actually talked to somebody a few weeks ago who said they saw this movie because this guy who played Noah, the creep, was in the last Step Up movie and could be a real up-and-comer.
• All I had heard was how bad the movie was, but that was actually a smart thought by that person I was talking to…
• Unfortunately, yeah they were completely wrong.
• You guys know I’m not a fan of Theo James in the Divergent movies, but this guy is like the less-talented Theo James had a love child with less-talented Dave Franco.
  • Or maybe the child of Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dane DeHaan on ludes.
• This guy was taking his role way too seriously that he ended up overacting to the point of hilarity.
• Seriously, there’s a scene where he’s supposed to be losing his mind and I just laughed.
• Even worse is the scenes where he’s being suave and you are supposed to laugh, but I end up just shaking my head he comes off as so smug and dumb.
• J-Lo has a son in the movie too, and I understand what they were going for with the son, because he’s supposed to be buddies with the creep, but he’s bratty and just doesn’t feel necessary.
• The ex-husband too, he felt like discount Alec Baldwin who was just kinda phoning it in.
• And J-Lo has a friend who’s also a teacher. In her case, I liked the character they were going for but the actress just didn’t seem to be taking it seriously.
• Ultimately, if you’re an actor and you have faith in a project or at least want to have fun doing it, it translates over to the movie.
• And I could tell that nobody in this thing wanted to be a part of it…

Script/Writing

• Now it’s funny because I said this movie wasn’t COMPLETELY awful…
• The first ten minutes, even twenty minutes I’d say of the movie weren’t bad.
• Granted, everything was kinda cheesy and there wasn’t a ton of substance to it but it was flowing along pretty well, the characters weren’t too cheesy, not lazy yet.
• Then after those twenty minutes, when we move into the “thriller” aspects of this movie, that is when this thing blows its brains all over the auditorium walls.
• Because after those twenty minutes… It’s like the screenwriters had 10 days to write this thing and tried really hard the first day, but then slacked off until 11:30 the night before it was due.
• So they just kinda scribbled down like ten minutes of plot and expected the directors to carry it off in 70 minutes of movie.
• And after that twenty minute mark things just start to make no sense, the characters chemistries with each other is lacking, the dialogue gets cheesy to just an absurd degree (yeah, those jokes in the trailer are like the tip of the iceberg…).

Direction

• And yeah the directing doesn’t help either…
• The pacing for this thing is all over the place, some scenes feel longer than they need to be, others feel shorter than needed, some scenes feel out of place entirely.
• The good thing is that the movie wraps in about 85 minutes so you aren’t there too long.
• The director does some really weird cuts too between shots, and it’s supposed to be stylistic but just comes off as stupid.

In Conclusion

• In Conclusion Guys, there was nothing particularly impressive about The Boy Next Door, and the whole thing was pretty messy from start to finish.
• I saw potential because there were one or two cool scenes, and Jennifer Lopez was not awful in the movie, but other than that there’s no reason to ever watch this.
• And you shouldn’t watch because yeah, The Boy Next Door? It’s Definitely Not Worth Your Time.
• I didn’t give it the complete “Unwatchable” though because it can be watched if you’re like really down about something or maybe just in the background at a party.
• Not worth buying or watching for good quality ever though.

***

So guys, those are my thoughts on The Boy Next Door! Have you guys seen this movie and if so, what are your thoughts on it? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.