MAY 31, 2017
I blame it all on “21 Jump Street.”
No, not the Johnny Depp TV series from the late 1980s whose story-lines were always reliably made from Velveeta, but instead the 2012 feature film reboot starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as cops who go undercover as high school students (!!!!) in order to infiltrate a local drug ring.
“21 Jump Street” was that it was surprisingly good, genuinely funny and just meta enough to add a whole layer of self-awareness to the jokes. Rather than running away from the goofy plot and ludicrous casting, “21 Jump Street” embraced them and created a smart, funny R-rated comedy that raised the bar on TV-to-movie adaptations. And its sequel “22 Jump Street” easily cleared that bar and raised it even higher, making what they had achieved look so easy that it was inevitable that more movies based on cheesy series would be soon be on their way.
And now they have arrived. First up was “CHIPS” in March (see full review here), one of 2017’s worst films so far, that peppered into its turgid plot a series of “gay panic” jokes that would have felt dated in the 1960s as its two lead characters find themselves in compromising situations that elicit an “Oops! Ick! But I’m not gay!” kind of reactions. (To save their reputation, it’s important to point out that the “Jump Street” creative team had nothing to do with “CHIPS.”)
Nor did they have any input into the current “Baywatch,” which moves the lifeguard action from Malibu to Miami, but its slow-motion running on the beach in red bathing suits iconography remains the same.
Dwayne Johnson takes over from David Hasselhoff as Mitch Buchannon, leader of the crack Baywatch lifeguard team, which is holding tryouts to fill three available positions. Under orders from the powers-that-be who are looking for publicity, one spot is guaranteed to go to disgraced Olympic swimmer Matt Brody (Zac Efron, in full Ryan Lochte mode) who is using Baywatch to rebuild his reputation while assuming that he can just skate through the tryout.
Mitch also selects Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario), a lifeguard very much in Mitch’s mold, and Ronnie (Jon Bass) in what has become the obligatory Jonah Hill/Josh Gad overfed sidekick role. Question: why would super-responsible Mitch endanger the lives of the public by giving a coveted lifeguard spot to someone who looks like he would have trouble negotiating a bathtub, much less race to save a drowning swimmer? Just asking.
Most of the next half-hour consists of character bonding, including a “dick-caught-in-a-park-bench” routine that never fails to elicit crickets. I suspect, however, that the cast just wanted to put off having to get to the plot, which is right out of “Scooby Doo.”
Kids are finding packets of drugs washed up onshore, and the Baywatch team is not going to stand for that! Mitch and Brody trace the source to a posh new hotel on the bay owned by evil mogul Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) — we know she’s evil because she slinks around all day holding a drink and purrs veiled threats to anyone within earshot.
Victoria has taken over every business in the bay except one mom-and-pop ice cream shop whose elderly owner refuses to sell but who is coming under extreme pressure to do so by Victoria’s thugs. This will not happen on Mitch’s watch, and the battle is joined.
Johnson’s sheer likeability has saved more than one movie in his career, and, although this one is a heavy lift, he barely manages to pull it off. But Efron and Bass really need to call their agents — Efron has been stuck in the “vain comic stud muffin” role in his last few films and Bass has to get out of that “Josh Gad-lite” trap now before he can’t.
As for the female characters, they barely register, but it’s not the actresses’ fault — Daddario, Ilfenesh Hadera as Mitch’s second-in-command, and Kelly Rohrbach in the Pamela Anderson role all have impressive resumes, even in their still-early careers. But it’s clear that, at least here, the all-male writing staff hasn’t a clue how to write for women, and while each actress may be given a punch to throw or a joke to land, throughout “Baywatch,” they’re stuck serving as eye candy and little more.
“Baywatch” is not so hot, but just think — it could be worse. “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Fall Guy” and “Gilligan’s Island” are all in development now. Does anyone have an Excedrin?
GRADE: C
