Review of Baywatch (2017) by Kaptenvideo — 18 Jun 2017

I love TV series in general but somehow have never really delved into the legendary „Baywatch“ (1989-1999), starring David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson and other megababes of the time. At its peak times, it was followed by over billion viewers!

Whatever qualities the original „action drama“ series must have relied on, the movie is very different aquatic mammal altogether. 65% of the original’s audience were women but the remake is clearly a raunchy mainstream comedy for guys.

There’s a recent successful example of how to serve cheesy old TV hit to modern cinema audience – 2012’s „21 Jump Street“ starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill –, so the new „Baywatch“ goes down the same road, only with less hilarious or fresh results.

The movie is watchable enough for the first two thirds or so, when it’s mostly about beach, good-looking people and dirty jokes. All this is, sadly, followed by switching to action mode, which makes nonsensical events less bearable and more forgettable – and doesn’t offer much thrills for compensation.

Perhaps surprisingly for boys’ comedy, „Baywatch“ concentrates on its stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, so the cute girls are relegated to the sidelines, even the Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra.

But this may have been a conscious choice of those who gave the movie its final form in post-production, because Rock & Zac have way more charisma than anybody else here. Which may be the fault of mediocre material (they couldn’t even make good use of obligatory guest appearances by Hoff and Pam!).

So, it’s passable entertainment for modern raunchy comedies crowd – but not really a recommend-worthy for anybody, even for its target audience.

Still, there’s something likable and winning about Johnson, although most of the movies starring him are mediocre at best. And Efron’s cool too, beefed-up muscles and good looking stupid guy roles fit him extremely well.