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Baywatch (2017)
One of the most frustrating movie experiences I've had in a while.
I was looking forward to the Baywatch movie with certain expectations, as a dopey, silly summer comedy that had cast most of the right people in their respective roles. The trailers, while not perfect, I thought showed some potential for the movie to be akin to a 21 Jump Street style adaptation of an older cheesy TV show albeit not as good, but still enjoyable nonetheless. But it falters on so many levels that I cannot defend it, and I'm usually able to defend certain movies I've looked forward to before that weren't well-received by others.
I'll get the brief positives out of the way first. For the most part, they got the right people to star in this. Dwayne Johnson (playing David Hasselhoff's part) and Zac Efron do make a solid pairing, even if they're playing their standard character archetypes. No one in the cast is really at fault her. They're just victims of bad material. And there are some minor amusing self aware moments including how these characters, who are lifeguards, are inexplicably solving crimes.
Now onto the first big negative. Although, like I said, the trailers suggested an adaptation of the show akin to 21 Jump Street, from the opening frame of the movie, it does not feel like such a movie. It starts with a rescue sequence shot in over-dramatized fashion. And the problem is, while the movie goes for deliberately ridiculous, it's not played out in a comedic fashion. It feels more like a Fast and Furious movie. There are numerous action sequences in this movie that play out in this fashion. And the filmmakers didn't seem to understand the difference between playing up ridiculousness for thrills or laughs, playing up its ridiculousness without fully addressing it head on like the Jump Street movies did. And quite frankly, it falters on both fronts, especially in the action bits which feature some very shoddy CGI. That, in turn, makes the actual attempts at humor, most of which were spoiled in the trailers, feel shoehorned in. It doesn't help that most of the humor is just simple raunchy humor. The movie seems really unsure of itself. This is reflected in the editing where it seems like they filmed a lot and couldn't decide what to keep.
The second big problem this movie has is that most of the actors aside from Johnson and Efron are sorely underutilized. Kelly Rohrbach clearly has a bubbly personality playing Pam Anderson's part, but she's relegated to manic pixie dream girl to Jon Bass's role as the out of shape character in a cast full of pretty people. Ilfenesh Hadera probably fares the worst out of all the cast members in terms of development as she's just there as a steely personality type to function as Johnson's number 2, even though she was supposed to be his love interest which is clearly not shown at all.
This lack in character development was particularly irritating to me when it came to Alexandra Daddario. I've been a solid fan of her for a while now and I was rather excited to see her in a Baywatch movie. Yes, it was partly for the wrong reasons *cough*True Detective*cough*, but she's shown herself to be a very capable actress when she's given the right kind of material. Considering she was the first female they cast in the movie (I personally predicted she would be when Efron was announced to join), I get the sense her role was originally bigger, but it seems like it had been reduced through a combination of rewrites and scenes left on the cutting room floor, leaving her with a character with little to no development. She's shown to be excited to be a part of the lifeguard squad without explaining why. And she's set up as the sassy romantic interest to Efron's standard douche-bro character without the relationship fully developing. Once the plot kicks into gear, she's just relegated to tag-a-long status where all she's allowed to do is give reaction shots.
Speaking of the plot of the movie, it represents the third big problem, that being the plot involving the villain played by Priyanka Chopra. The plot itself is an already thin one that's stretched even thinner. Now, before people throw knives at me, the problem lies not with Chopra or her performance. If she had given a bad performance, that would have added to the problem regarding her. The problem is that she's only as good as her *character's* presence allows her to be. Those who try to highlight her as a positive element of the movie are just undermining the issue her character presents for the movie, of which there are two. Between her casting announcement, later marketing and opening scenes, she's established as the villain very early on in the movie, so that means most of the scenes afterward involving her or her henchmen until the climax are just there to reestablish them as the villains of the movie, who are cookie cutter villains. And when it doesn't involve them, it involves the investigation into her. That, in turn, removes any sense of mystery or surprise from the movie. The second issue those scenes create is that they just waste screen time that could have been used to develop the supporting characters, which the movie could have used a lot more of. At that point, I didn't really care one way or another for how pointless the requisite show cameos were.
So yeah, I wanted to enjoy this, but I couldn't. I had been Tweeting with the writers hoping that we were on the same page about what this movie would be, but it doesn't seem like the case. If they had intended to go for the R-rated comedy route, they would have been better off attempting an ensemble character comedy in the vein of Wet Hot American Summer and put much less emphasis on a plot to stop a villain.
Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
Better than the trailers suggest, but not this year's Hangover
Being a fan of the cast, I will admit that I didn't like the trailers for this. The premise seemed a bit too mean-spirited and didn't seem like one we could really relate to, and Steve Carell seemed to be presented as a cross between Michael Scott and Sandra Bullock's character from All About Steve, in other words, very annoying and irritating. So I caught a free advanced screening because I like the cast, but was unsure if I wanted to pay to see it.
I was pleasantly surprised that this made me laugh a good number of times, but I wouldn't call it this year's Hangover because it felt different. To me it was half funny and half not-so-funny and/or too weird.
Pros:
-The "mouseterpieces" were pretty inspired.
-The dinner sequence was the most consistently funny part of the movie.
-Jermaine Clement is the most consistently funny character of the bunch.
-Paul Rudd's brunch with Steve Carell, Lucy Punch, and David Walliams was one of my personal favorite scenes.
Mixed:
-Steve Carell, Zach Galifianakis, and Lucy Punch all made me laugh at points, but the problem I have with their kinds of characters is that they don't really change throughout the movie, hence their routines get a bit tiresome for me.
Cons:
-The pacing was slower than The Hangover as well as other comedies I've seen as of late, thus I found a fair number of dull spots, particularly in the first two-thirds of the movie before the dinner. I think the movie was nearly two hours long.
-Certain people like Ron Livingston and Larry Wilmore felt underused.
-I like Paul Rudd and this is probably a fault of the script, but him playing the straight man has gotten kinda old. It's pretty much the same as I Love You, Man, but instead of focusing more on his social life like in that film, it focuses more on his professional life and it's not as interesting. He has some occasional quips, but the moments before he meets Steve Carell feel the most dull, and when he does meet him, Carell's outrageousness causes Rudd to take a backseat, and for a moment I forgot he was in the movie. However, like I said, this is more likely the fault of the script that causes him to just stand or sit and watch Carell rather than go head to head with him, which I believe Rudd, as a comedic actor, is capable of doing.
-More about the script, I could pretty much tell how it would end, but how it got there made the ending feel rather abrupt and quite unbelievable, mainly because of how it painted Rudd up to that point. Also, the script didn't feel like it left room for much improv, something which these actors have shown to be very good at, so most of the movie felt too heavily scripted and it seemed to drag it down a bit. Additionally, I didn't find the romance aspect strong enough story-wise to make me care all that much about Rudd. Stephanie Szostak was pretty cute, but she ain't Rashida Jones, and she's not in the movie much.
-This is a minor gripe, but some intense closeups were rather annoying.
Bottom Line:
All in all, despite my complaints, there were some good laughs to be had. It was a good one time watch, but I don't know if I'd want to pay to watch it again. However, if there were a spin off with Jermaine Clement, not unlike Russell Brand with Get Him to the Greek, I would pay to see that movie.