The Boy Next Door

This movie is really nothing we haven't seen before: A woman on the brink of divorce has an affair with her younger next door neighbor and, afterward, wants nothing more to do with the man. As a result, the neighbor gets violent and stalks her.

It is a fast-pace thriller with steamy love scenes and quick action sequences. However, the plot is predictable and the acting is sub-par at best. For a movie called, "The Boy Next Door," there should be more suspense and plot twists that lead up to the title role, rather than a one-time encounter that basically reveals almost immediately who the antagonist is.

It's not a entirely bad movie to pass the time with; however, you will find much more suspenseful and captivating thriller than this one.

Grade C-

I know the saying is actually with friends like ... but with a movie title like this ... what did you expect this to be? Only thing that might surprise you, is the fact that they allegedly went back and shot some extra scenes to make this spicier. How was that before, if this is the spicy/"erotic" version? Not that even further skin/encounters would have helped the movie.

But it is what it is. And that's a terror thriller, with an almost decent villain. It actually doesn't start that bad to be honest. I liked the way this went at the beginning and Jennifer Lopez does a neat job of pulling that role of. But just to a certain degree - after that it's downhill from there. So yes this is a bad movie, but it has a few things that can be seen as saving graces - if you're forgiving enough. Standard at best

This movie has no point, no interesting Plot. You could tell this movie was gonna be bad just by looking at the trailer. Not even if it was the only thing on TV, I would never watch this movie ever again.

I want to forget this movie even exists, I want it erased from my memory. This movie is one of those movies where the actors just accept the movie just for the money without any purpose. Anyway I don't recommend this at all, please don't waste your time on this I'm telling you ahead of time if you haven't seen it. I don't care if it's early 2015, this is the worst movie of the year and if it get's an Oscar I'm deleting myself from this Earth.

Like its subject matter, 'The Boy Next Door' is getting such a hush- hush treatment it almost seems as if someone didn't want you to see it. If that is any indication that someone was embarrassed by how this reverse 'Fatal Attraction' thriller turned out, well we're glad to say that it isn't as bad as we had feared. To be sure, that should not be mistaken for any endorsement of its merit, but given how little pre-release publicity its distributors bestowed upon it, we were sure expecting something much, much worse.

In her first big-screen role in two years, Jennifer Lopez plays a middle-aged high-school literature teacher who is still struggling to recover emotionally from her husband's (John Corbett) betrayal one year on and raising her teenage son, Kevin (Ian Nelson, on her own. Enter new neighbour Noah (Step Up's Ryan Guzman), who has moved in next door with his ailing uncle and proves himself to be quite the fix-it hero around her place, especially since Garrett's (Corbett) absence means that there is a space for a man to be around the house. Even better, Noah loves poetry and his intimate knowledge of Homer's 'The Iliad' becomes one of the first few things over which he and Claire (Lopez) develop a connection over.

There is however no mistaking their (mutual) sexual attraction, not when director Rob Cohen introduces Noah bicep-first when he glides into frame to prepare Claire's wonky garage door. When Kevin takes off with Garrett for a weekend camping trip and Claire's had one drink too many after a failed dinner date, Noah seizes the opportunity to get it on with Claire. The morning after, Claire wakes to proclaim their coupling a mistake – no matter that Guzman looks older than he is meant to be in the movie, he is a new transfer senior attending Claire's class at her school. Her rebuff doesn't sit well with Noah, whom we slowly learn is in fact a psychotic stalker who grows even more enraged when he catches her responding to Garrett's advances to give their marriage a second chance.

First-time screenwriter Barbara Curry slowly ratchets up the stakes against Claire – first, Noah 'poisons' Kevin's relationship with his father; then, he threatens to make public photos and even a video of their one-night dalliance; then, he sabotages the brakes on Garrett's Dodger; and finally, he kidnaps Garrett and Kevin – which Cohen builds up as an increasingly thrilling chain of events leading up to their final confrontation. Not only does Noah prove himself to be a master manipulator, he also shows himself to be prone to bouts of violence, in particular against Claire's good friend and the school's vice principal (Kristin Chenoweth).

That said, it isn't anything we haven't yet before, or done to more titillating extremes; yet, despite its familiarity, Cohen guides the proceedings along with the sure hand of a veteran, and it is to his credit that the end result is much more engaging than it ought to be. We're not sure what Lopez saw in the material for her to not only star but produce this rehash of 90s exploitation thrillers, but she at least makes her character sympathetic. The same however cannot be said of Guzman, whose portrayal of menace and malevolence doesn't go much deeper than the acting you'll see in a high school play. And for those who are expecting to see Lopez and Guzman get hot and heavy, well let's just say that you're likely to find yourself left cold.

It is probably too easy to lambast a movie like 'The Boy Next Door', but the truth is there are many worse films out there which deserve to be buried more so than this does. The premise does feel dated, but there hasn't been a sexual thriller like 'Basic Instinct' or for that matter 'Fatal Attraction' in a while, so if you're in the mood for some trashy B-grade thrills, you'll probably find some of those urges satisfied somewhat by this teaser that never does really get past first base.

My friend and I had a blast at this movie last Friday, but not for the reason you would expect. We literally laughed through the entire film - and what was even more fun was that the entire theater was laughing, too. The dialogue and plot were so thin and badly written, and the intense scenes so implausible, that it was hilarious. As the movie ended, I think all of us sat staring at the screen wondering if that really was the ending - that the credits were about to prove it was all over - that me, my friend, and the entire theater, cracked up all over again.

So, I have absolutely no regrets about paying money to see it. It was fun in its own right.