We’re living in a time of reboots and remakes, while Baywatch was never the first property on the tip of audience’s tongues it definitely seemed to be one of the first for Paramount pictures. With an honest self-deprecating approach, it not’s exactly a bad idea. However, as with anything, execution is what matters. While the Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Zac Efron and Alexandra Daddario with a tan and swimsuits may put some butts in seats it’s far from enough when it comes to sealing the deal, there’s still a lot of work for director Seth Gordon.
When lifeguard Mitch (Dwayne Johnson) is suspecting criminal dealings on the bay, disgraced olympian Matt Brody (Zac Efron) is forced to join the family of lifeguards and help in uncovering what’s really going on.
Now Baywatch seemed to know what it was in its opening scene and even first act, it was enjoyable, funny and charming. It’s when the first act ends and the attempt for an actual ‘story’ begins where the movie tragically falls to pieces. The fairly serious plot of the film is so by the numbers and cliche, it often hurts because the juxtaposition between the scenes heavily involved in the story vs the scenes not involved, are so different in terms of tone.
THIS IS A JOKE RIGHT?
The plot takes itself too seriously, it’s when we’re not directly focusing on this or the characters the movie is funny, the idea and concept brought in the laughs but this is soon left behind and the movie gets lost in its own improvisation and lack of a solid script. The chemistry between Efron and Johnson is fairly clear, a distinct lack of direction and poor editing to make up for this creates more cringe worthy scenes than humourous ones. Conversations are either forced and too long, disrupting the rhythm of a joke or they are heavily edited to cut out improvising moments from the set that need to be hidden to make a coherent short scene.
MASTER OF NONE
If 20 of your 100 jokes make people laugh hard, does that make you funny? No, I shouldn’t have to suffer through 5 cringeworthy jokes to get something worth a smile. That’s what Baywatch ends up being due to its very very poor lack of vision. It seemed as if the movie was trying too hard to be too many things, thus ended up being good at nothing at all and doing some of these things fairly poorly.
THE VERDICT
Baywatch it’s definitely skippable, while it just about passes as an ‘okay’ (I’m pushing it here) movie where you can turn your brain off, it’s still way down the pecking order in terms of what’s out this month and what’s worth spending your money on.
Words by Levi Eddie Aluede