My Review of "Baywatch (2017)"

Baywatch (2017) came out at a time when 21 Jump Street movie franchise was still hot and in everyone's minds. You can tell that they decided to make this movie after the success of those movies. There are a few obvious tells with the tone and joke styles of this movie and the later.

It all starts off with a big courageous save by our hero Mitch. He's the head life guard of the Bay. He takes this job pretty seriously and in some ways they didn't go over the top enough to emphasize how ridiculous the character really is. His character is a badass and it's played off as one. One of the jokes is that he's supposed to be hilariously played off as a badass much in the same vein as Machete or Black Dynamite. They didn't go over the top enough to make me feel that in this movie.

We get introduced to the other characters in this movie through a lifeguard tryout situation. The Bay is hiring 3 new lifeguards and it happens to be the tryouts. Hundreds are in attendance to get the coveted position. In the end we get three interesting albeit one dimensional characters.

There's the beautiful Summer who doesn't really do much other than be eye candy and supportive character for the screen. Then we have the dopey nerdy and socially awkward Ronnie. I think they could have did more with Ronnie's character but only use him as comic relief. Finally we have the 2 time Olympic disgrace, Matt.

This movie mainly centers around the tumultuous relationship between Matt and Mitch. There seems to be some sort of alpha male rivalry going on between the two. Mitch being the big dog of the group trying to upkeep his supremacy where Matt is oddly rational despite being a bit of a douche.

It's supposed to be a comedy and at times this movie has its fun moments but it falls flat a lot. Many of the jokes are pretty mundane based on one line zingers towards each of the characters. I really wished that they played on more of the characters that they had on the show. Again the Ronnie character should not have been just a side note. They could have played his character a lot more. They could have added a lot more fun with CJ, Summer and Stephanie but these ladies were just props in the background.

The inconsistency of the movie is also tonally all over the place. You can tell that they want to emulate the 21 Jump Street franchise because they try to be self aware. I'm not a huge fan of the original Baywatch TV show but it's obvious when they're trying to reference previous episodes of the original show. They also try to poke fun at the ridiculous premise of the movie in the first place. They're lifeguards that are trying to do police work. Yes this doesn't make sense and it is ridiculous but they could have played this up a little more.

Also the special effects for this movie are pretty bad. I don't know if it's purposely bad or not. One could make the argument that it's based off a low budget show so they purposely made the special effects look pretty bad. For a big movie it was pretty awkward to see some of these scenes. You can tell where all the green screens were and it really pulled me out of the experience.

Overall, there is some fun to be had with this movie. I guess if you're a fan of the original show you'd probably get more out of this than everyone else. Movie wise it's a little below mediocre. This movie can be a bit of a slog to watch and would be better off as an episodic TV mini-series. That's why I have to give this movie a 4 out of 10. I think you can enjoy this movie if you watch it in 15 minute intervals.