Review: Baywatch

Mitch Buchanan (Dwayne Johnson) oversees the lifeguards at Emerald Bay beach, and also oversees the training of hopeful new recruits. The principal hopefuls are disgraced former Olympic swimmer Matt Brody (Zac Efron), the beautiful Summer (Alexandra Daddario), and chubby nerd Ronnie (Jon Bass). Helping Mitch with the selection process are lifeguards C.J. Parker (Kelly Rohrbach) and Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera, in the Alexandra Paul role in-name only). Meanwhile, drug-dealing real estate queen Victoria (Priyanka Chopra) has nefarious plans for the Bay.

The original “Baywatch” TV series was idiotic (“Baywatch: Hawaii” even more so), but for those of us who were of a certain (teen) age at around the time the show was on, it certainly had its…erm…charms, shall we say? There’s a reason why it was one of the most popular shows on TV worldwide during its run, obviously. This 2017 big-screen misappropriation of the brand has precious few charms, I’m afraid. Basically doing a raunchier version of what “The Brady Bunch Movie” and its sequel did for that beloved TV show, the film has precious few laughs or thrills. In fact, it’s remarkably enervated and lethargic stuff from director Seth Gordon (the enjoyable comedy “Horrible Bosses”), who doesn’t even send-up the TV show, particularly and overdoes the slow-mo and weird angles for neither comedic nor dramatic positive effect. Speaking of the comedy, it’s about the only somewhat decent aspect to the film, and sadly it’s an aspect the director doesn’t place anywhere near enough emphasis on. He also fails in perhaps the most crucial aspect for anything with “Baywatch” in the title: He keeps the female cast largely covered up. Even more so than the PG-rated TV show. I get it, it’s a new era and “Baywatch” was pretty damn sexist even for its time, but an MA-rated movie surely can and should show more skin than a PG-rated TV show from the late 80s-early 90s, right? Especially when you’ve got the busty Alexandra Daddario in the cast. Apparently not, and Ms. Daddario displays almost no cleavage whatsoever throughout the film. So what do we get? An awkwardly-told plot involving a shady real estate deal. In 2017. Yeah, we’re still doing that, it seems. And gee, I wonder which three recruits are gonna get chosen by the end. Yeah, that’s a riveting bit of suspense. Subpar stuff, not helped by a thoroughly wooden, humourless, and charmless performance by a miscast Priyanka Chopra.

It’s a shame, because the film is actually somewhat likeable, as are the majority of the cast (even if Alexandra Daddario and Zac Efron look alarmingly like siblings- Am I the only one?). Dwayne Johnson is a good choice in theory for the David Hasselhoff role, and is a better actor than Hasselhoff. However, he and Priyanka Chopra share zero chemistry and Johnson can’t do anything to salvage their scenes. Outside of that, he’s an easy sell in the part. Sadly, Daddario doesn’t fare terribly well and looks bemused throughout. I will say though, that Zac Efron is pretty perfect in the David Charvet part, now a hotshot swimmer sliding into a new position as a lifeguard after public disgrace. His uber-macho one-upmanship with Johnson’s Mitch has its moments, but not nearly as many as Gordon seems to think. Although not remotely busty enough to play the pneumatic C.J. Parker, Kelly Rohrbach is surprisingly likeable and funny in the part. However, with crappy villains and their tedious, outdated shonky real estate scam, there’s nothing much the cast can do here. After about an hour, boredom sets in here I’m afraid. Some of the cast are likeable, I just didn’t care. The expected cameo by The Hoff is hilarious, if a little too short. The other star cameo is a glorified walk-on, and a silent and unfunny one at that.

I’m just not sure how the director of the excellent documentary “The King of Kong” could fuck this one up, but he really does. The comedy has its moments, even though I knew I really shouldn’t have laughed at any of it. That’s life though, and while some of it is funny, most of it isn’t. With a deathly dull plot given far too much emphasis and not enough actual depth to that plot (or freshness for that matter), it’s bad enough. The film is way overlong to be so underdone. With barely any cleavage on show, a miscast villainess, and not all that much resemblance to the TV show, it seems Mr. Gordon has no idea what he’s doing here. Yes, it’s sort of likeable in a way, but really subpar stuff in either comedy or dramatic departments. The screenplay is by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (who previously teamed up for the slightly superior “Friday the 13^th” remake. Superior as in I think it’s better than the terrible original).

Rating: C-