Loosely based on the 90’s TV show, Baywatch stars Dwayne Johnson as Mitch Buchannon, Lieutenant of the lifeguards in Emerald Bay, Miami. When he is reluctantly forced by his bosses to work with former Olympian superstar Matt Brody (Zach Efron) the balance of the group is challenged. Will Johnson & Efron be able to put aside their differences and pull the team together to save the day? Who cares?

 

 

I could spend the review scathing this movie since, as a whole, critically, it is really bad. The editing is amateurish, the whole plot is absurd, the action is way over the top, the CGI is terrible and the fight scenes are awful. But when the opening scene of a movie has Johnson rising out of the water like a God of the sea after rescuing a man, while behind the Baywatch logo bursts onto the screen, as dolphins perform tricks in the background, the bar has been set with this film.

Johnson shows what made him such a success in the WWE as his put-downs on Efron’s character, although predictable, are all delivered with the impeccable swagger and cutting edge we would expect. His chemistry with Efron is excellent, these two have most of the best lines and scenes in the film and their efforts to out-do each other are some of the funniest moments in the movie. Efron, if you have seen any of his movies in the last few years, plays to type and does his usual comedic turn. The rest of the cast are not given much to do but do what they need to well in support of the leading men and the rest of the cast are just filler to the main headliners.

 

 

With director Seth Gordon’s giving us previous efforts such as Horrible Bosses & Identify Thief , both comedies that know what they were trying to be so they worked, this movie is no different and is full of ridiculous self aware humour which works when the movie is taken in context. The James Bond inspired villain, inept henchmen, penis jokes, the plot around illegal drug trade, the mismatched characters coming together to save the day, it’s nothing new but it’s not selling itself as anything else and there within lies the charm.

As a film lover, this should have scarred me for life, but it didn’t because of the game plan it set out from the very start and made no effort to hide. It’s not intelligent comedy, there are no action sequences which will blow your mind but for some reason I really enjoyed leaving my brain at the door and just going with the flow.

DJ Speaks Movies Rating: 5 Out Of 10

©Darren Jones 2017

­