Baywatch (2017) – Review

Much like video games, Anime and comic book movies during the 90s, the road of movie adaptations of beloved TV shows has been about as smooth as as a stegosaurus’ back. Some try to reinvent themselves seriously in a modern world (Miami Vice), others even obtain an entire second life that actually far eclipses it’s source material (Mission: Impossible), but most go down the comedy route in order to transform a mostly serious premise into a broad action comedy. 21 Jump Street, Starsky & Hutch, The Dukes Of Hazard, they’ve all gone down the spoofy route in an attempt to take the piss out of the dated originals while simultaneously honoring them. Depending on your personal tastes, the success rate for these sorts of things vary, but I think that most of us will agree that 2017’s Baywatch is probably the nadir of the bunch.
That’s right, there’s not enough slow motion running, revealing swimsuits and hot babes in the world to make this turkey remain afloat…

When you go to the beach in Emerald Bay, Florida, you’d best believe you’ll be in safe hand because Lt. Mitch Buchannon and the elite lifeguard known as the Baywatch will ensure your safety in all sorts of ways. There’s the saving from drowning, of course; but beyond that, the obscenely muscular hero and his shapely crew all take it upon themselves to involve themselves in keeping people safe in other ways such as thwarting sand grifters or investigating the local drug trade.
However, these odd side projects are put on hold when the Baywatch holds tryouts for new recruits and get more than they bargained for. Studious Summer and nerdy everyguy Ronnie are fine, but the arrival of disgraced Olympic gold medal swimmer Matt Brody and his cruise liner-sized ego soon thows a spanner into Mitch’s well-oiled machine. Trying to whip the entitled olympiad into shape and get him to realise that Baywatch is a team, Mitch soon turns his attentions back to the booming flakka trade that local police just can’t seem to stem and figures out that the mastermind is powerful businesswoman Victoria Leeds. However, in order to get evidence, he and his team has to undergo a series of missions and side quests in order to gather up the evidence that Leeds is up to no good and matters are made even more difficult with Brody bring unable to understand why they can’t just… be at the beach and just simply save people from drowning and jellyfish stings.
As the drug trade gets stronger amd bodies start showing up on Emerald Bay’s picturesque beaches, Mitch and the Baywatch have to give it all they’ve got if they’re going to expose Leeds – but can Brody learn the true value of teamwork before I get so annoyed that I’ll switch the film off entirely? I don’t know man, it’s fairly neck and neck so far.

I’ve never been entirely sure what anyone hopes to get from a movie adaption of a TV show that enthusiastically dumps on its source material every chance it gets. Are we supposed to think that shitting on an old, admittedly dated, show is going to interest anyone who genuinely loved it back in the day? Are we also to believe that people too young to remember huddling in front of a television set back in the day to ogle at the lithe forms of Pamela Anderson and Erika Eleniak run majestically through the surf are actually going to be interested in this? The answer to both of these questions is most likely a resolute “no”, so the powers that be instead has crammed this risable reboot with as many things they can think of to attract 15 year-old boys in their droves regardless of whether it actually fits the Baywatch aesthetic or not.
Baywatch may have been fairly lowbrow back in its heyday when it effortlessly dominated the airwaves, but there’s something almost sweet and niave looking back on it now. Watching David Hasslehoff and his manly chest rug clear up all sorts of shenanigans surrounded by gorgeous beaches in even more gorgeous women, was frequently ridiculous, but at least it had a modicum of decorum. Baywatch 2017 instead feels like it was put together algorithm that’s been programmed by a coked-up studio head desperate for a hit. Thus the silly, horny show about crime fighting lifeguards becomes a bloated, Dwayne Johnson action comedy that, in its quest to be as needlessly crass as it can, frequently neglects to be either funny or exciting. A major problem is Johnson himself whose hero obsession is in full flow and by this time in his career, watching him play yet another a flawless protagonist who is the strongest, manliest and virtuous man around is even more insulting when you realise all this shit has probably been written into his damn contract.

Elsewhere, Zac Efron seems to be slumming it somewhat as the egotistical bro who requires a few life lessons from the immense bald one, but credit where it’s due, he’s sporting a physique that would even make Hugh Jackman blush, but in comparison, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach and Ilfenesh Hadera are required to mostly deliver stunned reaction shots to the jokes, deliver blank exploitation and look appropriately stunning in miniscule swimwear. Also, Jon Bass works so hard for laughs that never come, you become genuinely worried he’s going to seriously strain something vital and Yahya Adbul-Mateen II is also here, for some reason – but we’ll let him off as he was still sort of an up and comer at the time.
However, what’s the most off-putting thing about Baywatch is it’s near almost total dependency on crass, jocular humour that relies solely on dick jokes. Now don’t get me wrong, I like a good dick joke as much as the next man-child, but some of the bone-headed, phallus-related farce it doles out makes the kind of stuff they get up to in an average Bad Boys movie look like fucking Hemmingway in comparison. Maybe a scene the requires Efron to cradle the balls of a dead body while Johnson takes snaps fucking killed on the page, but when you consider that the original Baywatch was good, clean dumb fun by comparison, I’m not entirely sure where this two hour long genital obsession came from.
From here, the rest of the film collapses as it desperately tries to aquire the wit and staying power of the 21 Jump Street movies (surely the gold standard for spoofing old TV shows); the plot is non-existent, villain Priyanka Chopra looks pissed at her agent, Hasselhoff and Anderson are trotted out for pointless cameos and Johnson spends a bewildering amount of time taking about testicles and various genitalia – which is fitting considering that this film is also a load of old balls.

Maybe we should actually be impressed; after all, it takes real skill to be able to tarnish the Baywatch brand worse than Baywatch nights – but it really is quite shocking to see how low this reboot will sink in order to scrape up some meagre chuckles. In fact, it’ll sink so low, not even Mitch Buchannon would be able to drag it back to shore and breathe life back into its beached, water bloated carcass. Fuck you Baywatch, let me drown.
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