Baywatch * (2017, Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Kelly Rohrbach, Alexandra Daddario) – Movie Review

Dwayne Johnson stars as hard-man lifeguard Mitch Buchannon, who clashes with brash, conceited new beach boy recruit Matt Brody (Zac Efron). But then together they uncover a criminal plot by drugs villainess Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra).

Yes Baywatch is back, and on the big screen, in an aggressive, in-your-face adaptation of the 25-year-old TV show, packed with charmless characters sharing insults, obscenities and penis jokes, which so didn’t happen back in the more innocent day on television. It dumps the carefree sexy innocence of the campy TV show to get its jollies in a knowing, leering Loaded kind of way, instead of making gentler sport by spoofing the kitschy sexism of the original.

As an action comedy, it is desperately weak in both departments. The action is totally generic and plain uninteresting, and none too well staged either. But there is worse. You go to a 2017 movie Baywatch spin-off for the laughs and the fun.

But, sad to say, Baywatch isn’t very funny, and the always slack and shaky laughs dry up early on when the generic daft drugs plot kicks in. What’s funny then? Characters and cameras leering at women’s swimsuit bottoms and cleavages was a bit of an iffy guilty pleasure back in the TV series days (1989-2000). Now, for a bit of a giggle, it just feels plain awkward. It’s like a Carry On movie.

The always likeable and appealing Johnson works hard to get laughs, but there is not much even he can do with this trashy script. Efron is a good actor but he is not really a funny man, and the endless references to how dumb and cute he is quickly become numbingly boring. He needs serious work, and to do some acting in a suit, not his birthday suit.

And he needs no other movie appearance dressed as a woman, not ever, never! This sequence terminates suddenly, and is quickly forgotten in the ‘plot’, though not so quickly forgotten by delicate viewers who might have thought Efron would have made a better looking woman. He looks like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie!

Kelly Rohrbach and Alexandra Daddario draw even shorter straws as the Baywatch babes C.J. Parker and Summer Quinn. They both look great, of course, but give fairly insipid performances. They just seem to be there and that’s it, though they do what the script asks of them. But that’s nothing compared to Jon Bass, who is just awful as Ronnie Greenbaum, the fat dork with a crush on CJ, a chilly, laugh-free zone.

With Johnson and Ephron suddenly and inexplicably pals, as the young guy gives way to the big fat ego of the older one, and the lovely CJ finding she likes the dizzy dork, it is all for one and one for all on the beach. With drugs villainess Victoria Leeds quickly dealt with, there follows wrap-up stuff about this ghastly crew of lifeguards devoted to keeping their beach a sacred place being a family, using abandoned ideas and dialogue that Johnson’s other franchise Fast & Furious must have chucked in the waste bin.

Poor David Hasselhoff appears very briefly. They could have given him a role – that of the lifeguards’ boss, Captain Thorpe – but they didn’t. They gave it instead to Rob Huebel, who is no good at all. Poor Pamela Anderson, the original C.J. Parker, appears, without dialogue, looking like Mae West in Myra Breckinridge (an older actress, over-made-up, cruelly made to look like a parody of her former self).

With the Hoff and the Rock chatting away on the closing credits, there are scary hints of a desire to make a Baywatch 2. Such a temptation is to be resisted at all costs. But, if they do, they must employ the Hoff properly, and perhaps also feature David Charvet (the original Matt Brody) and Billy Warlock (Eddie Kramer) for old time’s sake.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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