Bay Watch (2017)

Directed by: Seth Gordon | 116 minutes | action, comedy, crime | Actors: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hannibal Buress, Rob Huebel, Amin Joseph, Jack Kesy, Oscar Nuñez, David Hasseloff, Pamela Anderson, Clem Cheung, Charlotte McKinney, Izabel Goulart, Arian Foster, Vernon Davis

You have to be of good quality to make Baywatch the series stand out well, but the makers of this film actually pull it off. It wasn’t such a bad idea to produce another winking film version of a successful but not necessarily high-quality series from ‘the old days’. It already worked well for ‘Starsky and Hutch’ and ’21 Jump Street’ and with the ingredients of Baywatch – beautiful beach bodies in exaggerated slow motion, soapy entanglements, macho behaviour, action moments – it’s quite a nice action comedy. But this is not it, unfortunately.

An over-the-top trailer featuring explosions, jet skis flying through the sky, cross-dressing acts, a joking Dwayne Johnson, beach hunk Zac Efron, and a bunch of sexy babes didn’t set off any alarm bells yet. With the exception, perhaps, of one unsavory moment in the morgue, where our heroes have to hide from a bunch of villains in corpse drawers, where Efron is treated to drops of fat dripping from a corpse he’s lying under.

Fortunately, it doesn’t get that distasteful, but the fact is that there are many more moments that can be characterized as flat, vulgar, uninspired and simply unpleasant than as funny, winking, brainless humor and action, as the aforementioned actors can serve up quite skillfully. ; with the right cook in the kitchen, at least. For example, in the same morgue there is a funny moment where Matt Brody (Efron) of Mitch Buchannon (Johnson, in the Hasselhoff role from the series) has to look under the ‘case’ of a corpse to see if he sees anything suspicious. Let’s just say it’s not just creepy and uncomfortable for Matt.

Special attention also deserves a scene that seems straight out of ‘There’s Something About Mary’. You probably remember the moment in that movie where Ben Stiller zips up a little too quickly after going to the bathroom with Mary (Cameron Diaz). After which the fire brigade and about the entire street come to take a look. Well, that is, except the person in question Ronnie (Jon Bass) is not stuck between his zipper but between a set of planks of a wooden table on the beach. Here he throws himself to hide his excited – ahem – state after the woman of his dreams, lifeguard CJ (Kelly Rohrbach) has freed him from a candy with a heimlich maneuver – driving into him in slow motion. Unfortunately, the poor wretch can’t get out of his plight naturally, because CJ constantly lets her own “boys” hang in front of his face. Really, it sounds funnier than it is.

The film is also not very strong from a storytelling point of view. The lifeguards regularly see abuses on their beaches, but complain that they are not allowed to investigate and chase themselves – in completely different places – at the risk of their own lives and the lives of others. The police are portrayed here as the unreasonable (semi-) bad guy, while you still have to admit that they have a point. Fine if the beach boys and girls give a tip or a pass, but let the real professionals finish it. Sometimes our heroes even leave their beach completely unguarded, because if necessary they have to go on a mission with the entire team. Unworthy of a lifeguard, isn’t it? Well, a knee ear who pays attention to that. Because if the lifeguard happens to be Dwayne Johnson, you know he can do anything, and a lot better than real cops too.

It’s also a shame that the film is virtually stripped of any tension or mystery and the identity of the bad guys is clear after about ten minutes. It’s also a shame that bad girl Priyanka Chopra – a true star of Bollywood – doesn’t impress at all as icy businesswoman Victoria Leeds, except for the way she manages to keep all her shapely body parts in her sometimes barely there dresses. Let’s stick to a language barrier for now, but if she hadn’t been such an attractive frame filler, staying awake to her scenes would have been nearly impossible.

Incidentally, there are quite a few moments or characters that are (could have been) equally fascinating, but which are then too little used to arouse further interest. For example, Olympic swimming champion Matt is constantly ridiculed for being arrogant and abandoning his relay team due to indifference. But later it turns out – or seems to be, according to Matt’s words – that the team just looked at him with their necks down and didn’t support him enough. To what extent this is true and Matt was actually lonely and kind of a victim is never worked out.

Still, ‘Baywatch’ isn’t a total misfire. Dwayne Johnson is almost always interesting to watch in action, both for his large appearance and brute strength and his comedic talents. His teasing with Zac is also usually amusing and his apparent fun and sympathetic disposition make his Mitch Buchannon a pleasant character to watch.

Zac Efron also has his inspired moments, for example when he goes undercover as a woman dressed as a woman, or when he is put in charge of the lifeguards and can really get into action and confront the criminals, without just taking the butt. are of Johnson’s pranks and pranks. But, alas, it shouldn’t have been. A better screenplay could have made this film quite enjoyable, but unfortunately this Baywatch film will have to sleep with the fish…