Baywatch

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyank Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ifenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, Hannibal Burress, Oscar Nunez, David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson
Directed by: Seth Gordon
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Comedy
2017

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: The Baywatch crew investigates a series of criminal activities centered around their bay.

Review:

Tim: Although I'd seen "Baywatch" a few times, it was not a show I regularly watched. It seemed unnecessary to reboot it as a movie, but here we are. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the end product. This isn't quite a good movie, but it's a decent and far from the disaster I expected. It's ultimately not funny enough, but there are quite a few enjoyable aspects to the film.

The movie is helped immensely by the cast. I really like Dwayne Johnson, even though he might have all the all-time record for appearing in the most movies without having made a single great film. As of this movie, I've seen 25 of his films and not one has scored "8" or above. That's incredibly bad. And yet, he's always enjoyable. I had a fun time watching him in this role. He has the physique to pull off the role and his comedic timing is strong enough for this film. He made a good lead. I also liked pairing him with Zac Efron. Efron has continually impressed me in recent years. While he might not have had the greatest character in this film, he has strong comedy chops and works well. I like how he regularly embraces the more ridiculous aspects of his character. He's funny here and he interacts well with Johnson. The two of them make a good pair. I loved seeing Priyanka Chopra as the antagonist here. I'm a fan of Chopra from her television work on "Quantico", so it was nice seeing her in a very different role here. I wouldn't call her performance great, but she was fun. I liked seeing Alexandra Daddario here. I think she has talent, but has been underutilized in recent years. She's enjoyable, although she doesn't have much to do. While Jon Bass was too over-the-top in his performance, he did bring quite a bit of humor the film. Kelly Rohrbach was okay, but her acting was pretty weak. Like Pamela Anderson, she wasn't hired for her acting ability. Still, the cast as a whole is game and appeared to have fun making the film. That made a difference.

While the story here is a little weak, it still created some nice opportunities for humor. The film was never laugh-out-loud funny, but I did smile and occasionally laugh. While too many jokes missed their mark, a number of them did hit. They didn't hit a bullseye, but at least they got on the board. The movie was a bit long at 1 hour, 56 minutes (it starts to wear out its welcome a bit towards the end), but for the most part, it was entertaining.

The film seemed to do a good job of paying homage to the original show while also telling a story for 2017. There were more than a few lighthearted jabs at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Those were very appreciated- the whole idea of Baywatch and lifeguards solving crimes is utterly absurd. This movie wisely approached this with a tongue-in-cheek mentality. That was essential to this film succeeding as much as it did. It helps when you watch something beyond stupid to recognize that those making it recognize the lunacy of it as well. That doesn't help the overall quality of the movie improve, but it certainly prevents it from becoming a disaster.

Baywatch is about as stupid as you might expect, but it's fun and self-aware and that brought the film into decent territory. While I wish the movie had been a bit funnier and more entertaining, I still enjoyed much of it. That was not expected. This film isn't quite a win, but it gets closer than most people would have expected.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



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