A current Hollywood trend is the rebooting of daggy TV shows from the '80s and early '90s; the refurbishment of '21 Jump Street' was an early success in this movement, encouraging studios to plunge further into the vault.
'Baywatch', Paramount Studios’ home-run swing for a summer blockbuster, sees 'Horrible Bosses’' Seth Gordon at the helm and in command of Hollywood’s most aesthetic: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Zac Efron, along with a buxom trio of Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra successors: Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach and Ilfenesh Hadera. The podgy Jon Bass and 'The Get Down'’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II are tasked with providing the comic relief.
For those unfamiliar with the premise of 'Baywatch', The Rock’s Mitch is an alpha stud lifesaver, the leader of an elite team featuring blonde bombshell CJ (Rohrbach) and his love interest Stephanie (Hadera). Efron, Bass and Daddario become new recruits after a gruelling try-out: Efron is a disgraced US Olympic swimmer whose embrace of the nightlife is eerily reminiscent of our own Grant Hackett; Daddario is both a super athlete and a super brain, with a degree in marine biology; Bass is an obese nerd whose very presence in such an allegedly exclusive and physically demanding profession is never adequately explained.
The new recruits are immediately thrust into action, joining Mitch and his crew as they investigate a socialite villainess played by Priyanka Chopra. For various reasons, 'Baywatch'’s attempt at recreating the '21 Jump Street' formula sinks like a lead anchor to the depths of the pearly sea.
The '21 Jump Street' approach appears deceptively simple: apply blockbuster sheen to nostalgia while poking satirical fun at the absurdity of the central premise of the original piece. Adults couldn’t really go undercover in a high school, lifesavers don’t really fight crime. 'Baywatch' spends almost the entire two hours reminding audiences that the characters wouldn’t and couldn’t really be doing what they are doing, which really prevents immersion within the story. We are also expected to believe that Jon Bass’ Ronnie, unfit and lacking in any discernible talents, is somehow in the same league as a squad of cross-fit junkies. His presence in the film may simply be an indicator of this film’s target audience: internet sub-Reddit trolls who think that swimsuit models should fall in their laps because they are “nice guys”.
It is a film that clearly intends to be primarily a comedy. There are certainly some genuinely uproarious dick jokes, and The Rock’s charisma cannot be buried, even beneath the most mediocre of scripts. The brutality of the violence perpetrated by the evil socialite Chopra and her henchmen, however, is jarring when juxtaposed with the supposed mirth and merriment. Some of the bad taste humour is as sickening as this movie's grotesque cavalcade of mutilations; one jest directed at disabled physicist Stephen Hawking is perhaps endemic of a world where mockery of the different has become acceptable. It is possible, I suppose, to simply enjoy the immaculate bikini and board short bodies of the majestically ripped cast as though it is day at the beach.
Beach goers, before going home, will often rinse off the smell of the sea beneath an outdoor shower. After going to 'Baywatch', you may need to shower for days to wash away the stink.
