The Watch (2012) Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade Movie Review

The Watch (2012)   1/51/51/51/51/5


Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller, Richard Ayoade and Vince Vaughn in The Watch (2012)

The Watch, You Shouldn't

Evan (Ben Stiller) loves Glenview, Ohio and has spent the last decade working hard to become the manager of the local Costco store. But things take a turn for the dark when Evan arrives as usual at the store to open up only to discover his night watchman, Antonio Guzman (Joe Nunez), has been brutally murdered. Feeling the need to do something Evan decides to set up a neighbourhood watch and manages to recruit locals Bob (Vince Vaughn), Franklin (Jonah Hill) and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade) to try and keep an eye on things whilst finding out who killed Antonio. They discover that Antonio's death was down to an alien and now it's down to these 4 neighbours to save mankind.

I always judge a comedy by the opening few shots at making me laugh and I have to say that I don't think I have watched a comedy in the same league as "The Watch". We have humour at neighbourhood diversity, humour about a dumb customer experiencing 3D, we have humour about a night watchmen doing what he likes at night including popping pills from the pharmacy and we have a cop winding up Evan at the crime scene. It really tosses a whole lot of comedy at the audience and none of it works. Yes you read that right as none of the comedy in the opening of "The Watch" works and it fills you with a sense of doom as to what will fill the next 90 minutes.

But it gets worse as whilst Ben Stiller is probably the best thing about the movie he delivers the sort of character which he has done in several movies where he plays the typically anally retentive husband sort of character. Then you have Vince Vaughn doing loud, Jonah Hill does annoying and Richard Ayoade does Richard Ayoade and that makes me wonder whether Ayoade doesn't act but just does himself in everything he does. It doesn't work and it gets worse when it comes to the supporting characters as well as the dialogue with attempts to be humorous by making some sort of sexual comment every other sentence.

What this all boils down to is that "The Watch" is bad and not only doesn't it deserve any more of my time reviewing it but you shouldn't waste your time watching it. Even as someone who normally enjoys Ben Stiller's and Vince Vaughn's movies this is terrible.


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