Baywatch (2017) Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Priyanka Chopra, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass Movie Review

Baywatch (2017)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Baywatch (2017)

Drowning in Mediocrity

Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson - Hercules) is devoted to his job as a lifeguard in the beautiful Emerald Bay, often keeping an eye on things, as well as his team, on his day off. It is why he finds himself locking horns with Matt Brody (Zac Efron - At Any Price), a new recruit and former Olympic medal swimmer who is now better known for his party boy antics and arrogance. But Mitch and his team, including new recruits Ronnie (Jon Bass) and Summer (Alexandra Daddario - Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters), find themselves with bigger problems to deal with as a synthetic drug is sweeping the area and Mitch believes the glamorous Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) is behind it.

They say you get wiser with age and now as someone on the wrong side of 45 I have come to realise that trying to make movie versions of TV shows is generally a mistake. You see most of those shows belonged to a time and had a style suiting that era be it the characters or the writing and to try and update them to work now robs them off what made them work. Take "Baywatch", the original show, which I grew up watching, was cheesy but it was fun with action, drama, sexy babes and humour. But the movie, well it delivers humour which is sophomoric, tones down the sexy babes aspect and then throws some generic action at it. It just isn't the "Baywatch" I use to love and so leaves me kind of disappointed and in truth bored because none of it is strong enough to keep you interested in what is going on.

The knock on effect of ending up a surprisingly boring movie means that "Baywatch" relies on actor appeal to make it entertaining. Sadly none of the cast are able to bring enjoyment to the movie with Dwayne Johnson at times looking flustered by the whole thing whilst Zac Efron often looks like he wishes he was elsewhere. "Baywatch" just doesn't come together which is highlighted by the fact it resorts to a vomiting gag to try and get laughs.

What this all boils down to is that maybe "Baywatch" works for those who think a gag about vomiting is funny but for anyone else, especially those who enjoyed the original TV series, it would be best to let this one float off into the ocean to never be seen again.


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