Review of CHiPs (2017) by Thequietgamer — 17 Mar 2018

Dax Shepard tries to do for ChiPS what Phil Lord and Christopher Miller did for 21 Jump Street by turning the late '70s, early '80s TV show into a raunchy R-rated comedy. While a better effort than the Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson led Baywatch, I'm disappointed to say that it didn't succeed. On top of being woefully generic, the movie has a pretty big flaw that stems from Shepard and Peña not having much chemistry. Their individual scenes are fine, but when they are together the laughs aren't as frequent thanks to their banal conversations and irritating bickering. Their eventual acceptance of each other as partners and blossoming friendship feels forced. This makes for a buddy cop flick where you don't want the leads to be buddies.

Shepard also tries way too hard to mine laughs from the character's bizarre and decidedly unfunny personality traits. I failed to find anything funny about Poncho's sexual addiction or Baker's tendency to get nauseous in other people's houses. I did get the some laughs from the dialog every now and then or the occasional physical gag. The action and chase scenes are also well done, if a little too heavy on the explosions. It's also the first R-rated comedy I've seen in quite some time that put boobs onscreen as opposed to dicks. Something that will give it some teenager appeal. Ultimately though, it's another example of why people should stop trying to cop Miller and Lord. It not only fails to do the original show justice, but the material isn't strong enough to allow it to stand out as a successful comedy in it's own right.

5.