Sometimes you want to see a film where you don’t need to give it too much concentration, hence why we ending up going to see Baywatch, even though we had never even seen an episode of the TV show.
We especially liked that it was a comedy, which will make a change from all the big action blockbusters being released at the present time.
The Baywatch film has plenty to enjoy, the main trio of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as Mitch (the character made famous in the show by David Hasselhoff); Zac Efron as Matt Brody (In the TV show played by David Charvet) and we admit our main reason for going, Alexandra Daddario as Summer Quinn (played by Nicole Eggert in the TV show) all do well in their roles
The rest of the cast, Ilfenesh Hadera as Stephanie Holden (Alexandra Paul in the TV show) does well with what little she has to do, despite a promising start when she appears to be very much Mitch’s no.2; Kelly Rohrbach takes on the role of C.J. made famous by Pamela Anderson in the show, but has little to do except being the focus for numerous slo-mo’s, cleavage shots and a love interest for Ronnie Greenbaum (played by Jon Bass)
The story follows Mitch and his team trying to stop Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) who is involved in a huge drug smuggling operation. Her character is portrayed as some sort of James Bond villain but has very little to do!
Now the trying to solve the drug smuggling deal part of the film in part works well, yet whereas it would have been solved in less than an hour on the TV show, this is stretched into just under 2 hours!
What I found to be the film’s real problem is how desperate it wanted to be an R-rated movie, almost the opposite of the early Saturday evening TV show that it was famous for.
We learn that Matt was a failed 2 time swimming gold medallist, who lost the US a medal in the relay race after heavy partying, this seems to be put into the story purely so they can have him throw up in a pool, which they do twice! So much so, he is known as the Vomit Comet!
Many jokes are around ‘private parts’, especially male parts, also surprisingly it is only male nudity in this film.
The film has some fun with Mitch when has challenges with the Police, Sgt. Ellerbee (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) or his Captain, Don Thorpe (Rob Huebel) but they are few moments.
We in the main follow the relationship between Mitch and Brody. This is because we have to follow Brody rebuild his life and learn what it is to be a member of a team, as he, Summer and Ronnie audition to be new recruits for the Baywatch team.
I really didn’t get the point of the Ronnie character, he seems to be put in the film as they think that because he doesn’t have the same body as the 2 male leads he can be the point of laughs, other than that it was just so the CJ Character has something to do!
The film, from a screenplay by writing team of Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, whose credits include Friday the 13th reboot and Freddy vs. Jason, so not really from a comedy background, which shows.
The film comes from director Seth Gordon, who gave us Horrible Bosses and Identity Thief, so has a comedy film director, but sadly we did not find this film funny at all. We think this is in part down to casting, there are many funny men and women on TV at present, who surely could have brought more laughs to this film?
If you liked the Baywatch TV show, you will probably like this for the nostalgia and the storyline of trying to stop drugs will feel like a show episode, you will obviously also enjoy the cameos from The Hoff and Anderson, but it will come down to if you like the additional adult material crammed into it, for no real reason at all.
The film doesn’t drag, it just never becomes a laugh out comedy, plus as a failing which is the norm now, you can’t help but feel you have seen a lot of this film because of the excessive trailer campaign, such as Efron’s character in drag, albeit these scenes are longer in the film of course.
The film is harmless, not very offensive despite what you may be led to believe and the cast at least look like they had fun making the film, the trouble is it’s just not very funny and instantly forgettable.
You can view the trailer at the film website here
Buy/Stream the film from Amazon here:
Never miss a BMAF blog. Receive email notifications when new posts are published by entering your email address in the subscription box on the top right-hand side of this page.
You can also like us on Facebook for more film news and content www.facebook.com/barkingmadaboutfilms/