So, summer is here. And with it, at least one beach-themed movie.
I have not (yet) ever seen any of Baywatch the television show, but Baywatch the movie falls flat (um, no pun intended, honest). It’s not terrible so much as disappointing, with a fine group of actors for this kind of thing let down by a script not up to par.
The Baywatch lifeguard team of Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson), CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach), and Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera) is doubled when they take in three new members: Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario), Ronnie Greenbaum (Jon Bass), and Matt Brody (Zac Efron). That last one is a disgraced Olympic champion swimmer who gets recruited by their superior (Rob Huebel) to boost their image. Of course, Mitch clashes with him through training but (big surprise) eventually comes to value him as a teammate.
And they’re going to need all the help they can get to take on socialite Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra). Owner of a local business, she’s into dealing drugs, bribing city officials, the works. As disasters with connections to her keep happening at sea, it’s clear to the team that there’s no coincidence. But the police, represented by Officer Garner Ellerbee (Yahya Adbul-Mateen II), don’t want them interfering. Obviously though, they’ll defy those orders.
Oh and, unlike the show, this is a comedy. I don’t know if this was right approach to begin with (playing it straight without irony may have worked well as it did for, say, Captain America), but even by that standard it doesn’t succeed. Aside from a couple laughs here and there, the gags don’t land and those that do get tiresomely drawn out. This is also yet another case of all the best material being used in the trailers. If you’ve seen those, you’ve seen it all.
The film seems to want to follow in the footsteps of the recent 21 Jump Street movies, but where that series made it clear that it’s a continuation in the universe of its show, this one makes a mess of it. Here the movie characters share names with those from the show, except we see that the original TV characters exist in this world too when Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff show up (this isn’t a spoiler, both names are right there in the opening credits). Now this could have had some good opportunities for some more lampshading, but is inexplicably not followed up on.
The main problem with doing Baywatch as a spoof is that it’s already been spoofed for the past few decades, and done much better. Heck, Son of the Beach was made to specifically parody it and ended up with several seasons worth of episodes. If you can’t top that – which this most certainly doesn’t – then don’t bother.
But this film does deserve some credit for the women – and no, not for the reason you’re thinking. Daddario is an interesting and reliable character actress so it’s a delight to see her in material like this. It’s a real shame though that her character gets close to no development (for instance, there’s a scene when her mom calls at an inopportune time, but that relationship was never established prior and doesn’t come up again). Rohrbach and Hadera – who one might call “unknowns” – make their mark as well, and Chopra has a good deal of fun. As for Johnson and Efron, their pairing is inspired, but again, the best of that is in the trailers.
I suppose that down the line this could be appreciated as a campy guilty pleasure. But for now, Baywatch the movie just represents wasted potential. Then again, the show itself didn’t really pick up steam until its later seasons, so maybe if there is a next film, the promise might be realized.
