The Boy Next Door

The Boy Next Door is a new film starring Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, John Corbett, Ian Nelson, and Kristin Chenoweth. It is written by Barbara Curry and directed by the genus behind Alex Cross, The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and Stealth, Rob Cohen. It is described as an Erotic Thriller. Let that sink in. The director of the third Mummy movie, is directing an Erotic Thriller. Which is, highly over classified. I went in expecting a mindless film with some cheap and fun thrills. Just a Thursday afternoon off. What I got, was not that.

The Boy Next Door follows High school teacher Claire Peterson (Lopez) who is in the middle of a divorce with her husband (Corbett) leaving their son, Kevin (Nelson), in an awkward stage of his life. When a young neighbor names Noah (Guzman) moves in next door and befriends Kevin. After a bad date while her son is out of town with his father, Claire makes a mistake of sleeping with Noah. Noah becomes obsessed with Claire and begins to stalk her. As Claire’s life begins to get turned upside down, she starts to realize the horrifying truth that Noah’s past isn’t what it seems.

I felt this movie, given its plot, had a lot of potential to bring JLo back to that character we loved in Enough. That badass chick that hits her limit and fights back. This is not Enough. But before I rag on it too much, I will give you a few of the positives. Lopez is completely stunning in this film. Not that she’s not always beautiful, but she is particularly glowing in this one. Every scene is shot almost to make her look as sexy as she possibly can. It is almost the only thing that keeps you going through the film.

Well, that’s about it for the positives. This film was just plain awful. Other than a half-naked JLo, and one or two pretty hot sex scenes, there is nothing redeemable about this film. The direction is spotty, the dialog is cheesy, the acting is sub-par, and the casting is acceptable only because of JLo. Everyone else in the film is pretty much terrible. The nerdy kid is too over the top, Guzman cannot play crazy what so ever. Not once did I ever buy Kristin Chenoweth as a Vice Principle of a high school. You would hope that maybe this would be one of those “So bad it’s good” guilty pleasure types, but it can’t even fulfil that role.

Most people might be confused seeing as The Boy Next Door doubled its budget on opening weekend. But here’s what you might not know. Cohen filmed this movie in 25 days, on a 4 million dollar budget. That’s not impressive. Anything can make 8 mill in January, 90%of what is released is just like this film, Garbage. I’m scoring this film 1.9, with a .2 bonus for a half-naked JLo. It would have been higher, but I think you get more of Guzman naked then you do JLo. So that only gives us a Jeebus score of 2.1. Don’t waste your money folks.

So what say you Jackass Nation. Have you already wasted money on this garbage? What did you think? If not, what is your favorite JLo film? Sound off in the comments below!