Baywatch

My review for this movie is sort of late as I had zero interest in viewing it when it came out. The trailers looked silly, bad, cringy so I skipped. Now, almost 6 years later it has come to pass that there was nothing better on the TV, so I gave it a chance.

Is the movie Bad? Yes. It is very selfaware though, over the top, silly and dare I say... fun. The movie is just ridiculous in a good way, making fun of but also tributing the original series.

The plot is simple, the actors are just having fun on set. The CGI is laughable, but I believe on purpose. There is a part with a rescue from a burning boat. The flames look so fake that it was funny in it's own right (sharknado level CGI in fact).

Do not expect inteligent humor, do not expect a well thought out plot, effects or acting.

In fact, this movie is probably best consumed with a group of friends and a side of alcohol. I went into this movie with absolutely zero expectations and came out pleasantly surprised with how much I was entertained.

Baywatch... Based of the 1990s TV series starring David Hasselhoff, about lifeguards... with some bewbs in between... And now, it's a movie, starring The Rock... Now in theaters, in my country...

Everyone already knows when your source material is "this", it was a recipe for disaster, and oh boy, it IS bad (but they know it!)

Let's start with the acting. Literally all the main characters are great. Dwayne Johnson is likable as always. Zac Efron is also good in this movie. The bromance between The Rock and Efron is probably the best thing in this movie. Alexandra Daddario... from Percy Jackson to this, she really does improved and in this movie, she probably gave her best performance so far. What's surprising is the comic relief guy, played by Jon Bass. He's no annoying/trouble making guy, he's actually helping the team, which is great, well done writers. Kelly Rohrbach and Ilfenesh Hadera is also great as C.J. and Steph respectively (although C.J. was overly sexualized, but that's pretty normal in this movie, obviously). Priyanka Chopra is way to good for this movie. I mean she could took something else rather than this. The cameos from Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson were also great.

Everything else is... 70% garbage. The story is awful. So convoluted, so many plot holes. The pacing is uneven. The fight scenes were so disappointing. There so many quick​ cuts and close ups in the fight scenes, especially those involve The Rock. You don't need quick cuts and close ups for the fight scenes, you got a former wrestler in this movie! He definitely can fake fight scenes. The visual effects in this movie is a joke. There's not a single CGI looked convincing in this movie.Every scenes that should be intense is gone thanks to the easily noticeable CGI fires and CGI explosions. I was expecting more practical than CGI, but now I'm disappointed. (But again, they kinda know it! They know it's bad, so they kinda tried to be more bad that the original!)

Let's talk about the humor. It didn't work, like 80% of it. They tried so hard to make you laugh, but most of the time, you'll be like: "..." The recurring jokes also gets annoying the more you've heard it. There's​ a lot of penis and bewbs, and most of them were so unnecessary. There's a conversation between Daddario and Efron in which Daddario kinda "forced" to bounce her bewbs (personal opinion btw). I mean: WHAT. (-_-) You don't needs bouncing bewbs and big balls all the time! Just give me a good movie that has a good story that is based from a really bad source material and I give this movie a immediate 9/10 stars. Seriously, are the writers writing an actual script for Baywatch, or a fan- fiction version of Baywatch? Because I'm pretty sure every 90 seconds in this movie would involve bewbs, or penises.

Overall, this is definitely a bad movie that knows itself is a bad movie. It's the perfect disposable stupid fun movie. If you're a casual movie-goer like me, you'll have mixed feelings for this movie. For anyone else, skip this movie and watch Dunkirk or Apes 3 instead. But you'll probably enjoy this movie more if you're drunk (or if you dare, drunk while you're mind is "flying", then you'll woke up finding yourself leaving the world, or if not, you'll woke up in a rehab facility.)

Final Score: 5/10. The acting is the only saving grace of this movie. And slomo bouncing bewbs.

On a personal note: *SPOILER ALERT* How could a fat guy can get laid with a blonde sexy chick, while others don't? What logic is this? What kind of sorcery is this?

I watched this once and hated it, but then watched it a few years later with my mom and we both cracked up. The key is to not take it too seriously, it's Baywatch.

Lots of pretty people and tight outfits, but again, it's Baywatch.

I thought the comedy was pretty simple but it fit the movie. Lots of hard-on jokes and flirting.

I think the best part is all the stuff that happens to Zach's character. Especially the morgue scene. Absolutely hilarious.

I say, if you like movies like "Pineapple Express", "Superbad", etc then you'll probably like this movie.

Might I also suggest partaking of substances to help you enjoy yourself.

Baywatch is super cheesy, low brow, campy, ridiculous, etc, etc.....but you know what? That's enjoyable sometimes! You don't knowingly buy a ticket to a movie like this and then go write a review afterwards complaining about plot, teenage boy humour, and character development. hahaha. I had low expectations, shut my brain off at the door, and enjoyed this movie for what it was.

It's a warm, beautiful day on the beach. The pristine waves crash gently against the sand as the sun-kissed folk of Southern Florida come out to play. Lifeguard Post 1 stands like a sentinel - its windows permanently cocked forward towards the horizon. There's a change in the wind. A wind surfer looses control of his sail and is catapulted upward towards the sky before plummeting, head first into a coral reef. He's knocked unconscious...all seems lost. Then Mitch Buchannon (Johnson) appears on the scene.

What results is a valiant rescue that inexplicably involves slow-motion running, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson flexing his pectorals underwater, fireworks and dolphins for some reason. The movie could have stopped right there as by that point we got the best version of what could have been the cinematic version of a far-fetched TV show. Unfortunately the first fifteen minutes aren't so much a harbinger of the hilarity to come but rather a visual metaphor for the movie's inflated sense of self.

The film energetically sets up its main characters with all-too-brief introductions on tryout day. We immediately endear ourselves veterans Stephanie (Hadera), C.J. (Rohrbach) and Mitch as they judge incoming trainees the tough and brainy Summer (Daddario), the dorky Ronnie (Bass) and disgraced former Olympic swimmer Matt Brody (Efron) whose ego Mitch sees as a liability. Much of the film's prouder moments are spent with The Rock and Efron doing what they do best; The Rock deflating Brody's ego with real-deal charisma and action hero one-liners - Efron playing the dim-witted, put-upon jock who deserves everything he has coming to him because he was in High School Musical (2006).

But just when you think everything will turn out for this movie, the narrative drastically shifts to a crime story that stops the movie's momentum cold. The narrative thrust involves the new owner of the beach's fancy yacht club (Chopra) and her suspicious connection to a new designer drug called Flaka. The rest of the movie doesn't so much spend time exploring that connection or its implications (Chopra compares herself favorably to a Bond villain pretty much from the get go) but instead it lays every aspect of the conspiracy out on the table and waits for the lifeguards to connect the dots.

This ploy not only doesn't work but it basically splits Baywatch into two completely unsatisfying pieces. The first piece brings a diversity of comic set-pieces which on their own, probably couldn't make a good sketch on Key and Peele (2012-2015). They lack a depth of character requiring one or two of them to be more gullible, less resourceful or otherwise dumber than what was previously established.

The other half of the movie plants its flag firmly on The Rock's ability to recap what we already know while Priyanka Chopra chews unhelpfully on the scenery until the timer runs out. All throughout the film drops hints that you should care about this or that - an insert shot of a watch brings more pause than a fiery boat rescue. Yet because nothing new is ever revealed, the film's call for attention becomes soporifically annoying.

The overall tone of the film is also aggressively reductive, treating the, in retrospect quaint misogyny of the original series with an uncomfortable amount of contrarian glee. Every time one of the girls of Baywatch justifiably call out the boys for being pervs, the payoff by the end of the film amounts to nothing more than quid pro quo ribbing or worse - they end up with the dude at the end. If Baywatch had just treated the subject as window-dressing, I might have been inclined to let it go (after all trash TV is trash TV). Unfortunately the movie stops just short of waving its d**k in the air while saying "you think we're being sexist, f**k you bruh!" Thus I think its worth a brief mention.

Baywatch has all the necessary ingredients to make a pretty satisfying comedic soup. Unfortunately apart from The Rock and Efron standing out as the film's sole saving graces, everything else is squandered on a useless story, oblivious editing and a unifying tone that's unnecessarily combative. Unless you're the type of person who truly believes Kelly Rohrbach's slo-mo runs along the beach are enough to maintain your attention, I suggest skipping out on this aggressively unfunny movie.

On a related note: Stop with the dorky guy gets the hot girl for doing nothing cliché. It's been done a hundred times before, you're bringing nothing new to the table and it's come to the point where if you do it at all it just feels icky. The Sam Witwickys of the the world should have to, you know, work for it now.