Early "Baywatch" Movie Reviews Aren't Looking Too Good

[JamesG]

Baywatch Reviews Trash Film as "Sloppy" and "Hopelessly Bland"
by Nick Romano
May 23, 2017


The first reviews for Baywatch have very little in terms of positive feedback. Sure, critics acknowledge there’s at least some good to come out of a film directed by Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) and starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron.

But what works seems lost in the “endless profusion of F-bombs,” “gay panic gags,” “thankless” roles for the female actors, and what amounts to a generally “sloppy” TV-to-movie remake.





Dwayne Johnson takes over David Hasselhoff as Mitch, the leader of a team of lifeguards determined to protect their beach from a businesswoman’s criminal plot. Thrown into the mix is Matt, a brash former Olympic swimmer played by Efron.

With a cast that includes Alexandra Daddario, Priyanka Chopra, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass, Ilfenesh Hadera, and a few cameos from the original "Baywatch" stars, the film was pegged to feature “‘this is my beach b–‘ rated-R humor,” but critics report “the picture has nothing to say.”







Chris Nashawaty (Entertainment Weekly)

Back in 1995, The Brady Bunch Movie showed that there was a clever, postmodern way to turn our mothballed childhood memories into irreverent satire. But with the exception of the first 21 Jump Street, Hollywood seems to be beyond the point of putting any effort into these things.

Aside from some mild laughs that come from the alpha-dog friction between Johnson and Efron, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift’s script is a lazy barrage of sad-trombone product-placement gags and red-band boobs-and-boners jokes. Perhaps even more depressing is the realization that this current retread plague won’t be ending anytime soon.

Leaving the theater, I saw in my newsfeed that The CW had just greenlit a reboot of "Dynasty". God help us all.







Owen Gleiberman (Variety)

"Baywatch", as a series, now looks jaw-droppingly goofy and harmless (actually, it did then too), and the movie would have been smart to satirize the show’s innocuous underworld drama and cheeseball male gaze, playing up the dated absurdity of it all.

But no: The film’s director, Seth Gordon, and its screenwriters, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, have glommed Baywatch onto the theme of the moment: namely, that a bunch of good-looking SoCal lifeguards, devoted to keeping their beach a safe cool magical place, are just like — wait for it! — a family.







Frank Scheck (The Hollywood Reporter)

That the film’s guiding creative ethos was apparently to push the envelope and go for an ‘R’ rating becomes painfully clear. The endless profusion of F-bombs seems to indicate that the screenwriters must have thought they would be paid per use.

The raunchy humor extends to gay panic gags strangely similar to the ones found in the recent, similarly misbegotten CHiPs; Baywatch strains for a vulgarity that never comes remotely close to being funny. Unless, that is, you find the idea of Zac Efron manipulating a dead man’s genitals hysterical.







Alonso Duralde (The Wrap)

A summer franchise movie that can’t decide if it wants to be a hard-R bawdy comedy, a d-bag-comes-of-age tale or a fairly unironic reboot of the glossy TV show (which ran from 1989-2001), Baywatch fails at all three, despite the best efforts of the perennially game Johnson and Zac Efron, two performers who have subverted audiences’ assumptions about their limitations and have emerged as solid comic actors.

It’s too bad they’re saddled with a film that somehow manages to fail to live up to the low expectations one would have of a movie called Baywatch.







Scott Mendelson (Forbes)

Baywatch is a crushing disappointment and a waste of quite a bit of talent. It is technically a comedic farce based on a dramatic television series, yet it is shockingly unfunny and hopelessly bland. The picture has nothing to say, either about the show on which it is based or anything else of value.

The likes of Dragnet, The Brady Bunch, 21 Jump Street and (to the extent that this counts) Galaxy Quest offered varying degrees of mockery directed at their source material while also providing sharp commentary about just why the property was appealing to the masses.

Baywatch has no reason to be based on the television show aside from the brand name and gains nothing by its quasi-meta existence as an R-rated farce based on a straight-faced action drama. All of this would be forgivable if the movie were funny. But it’s not.







Steve Rose (The Guardian)

Overshadowed by this alpha-male chest-off, the women are given thankless, almost interchangeable roles as love interests and swimsuit models. Sports Illustrated regular Kelly Rohrbach plays the Pamela Anderson character, though ‘character’ is a generous description.

The swimwear couture hasn’t moved on since the 90s, either: cut so high at the hip you wonder if there was a lycra shortage; unzipped at the front to show maximum cleavage. Even Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra, the underused villain of the piece, looks like she was contractually obliged to show as much flesh as permissible.







Brian Truitt (USA Today)

Everything one would expect in a Baywatch movie — cleavage, bouncing body parts, constant flexing and the excessive use of slo-mo — is present. (Plus, a couple of the old TV cast members show up for cameos.)

Yet the remake yearns to be both sendup farce and straight action film, tripping along the way and failing to grasp either. When the plastic aquarium version of the usually ultra-charismatic Johnson gets more laughs than the real deal, there’s something seriously wrong.







Matt Goldberg (Collider)

I don’t blame 21 Jump Street for the existence of Baywatch. Studios only see formulas, not how the pieces work together. They saw an R-rated comedy based off a late-80s/early-90s kitschy TV show, and one should work just as well as another.

Unfortunately, whereas 21 Jump Street knows how to manage weird jokes, subvert action tropes, and build a worthwhile story between its two leads, Baywatch has no idea what to do beyond saying ‘f–‘ a lot and having Dwayne Johnson rag on Zac Efron.

The movie feels like an odd mish-mash of scripts, with one story being more of a buddy flick while another tries to create a team dynamic. Perhaps there’s some version of Baywatch that works, but it’s not the one director Seth Gordon ended up with.

http://ew.com/movies/2017/05/23/bayw...elessly-bland/

[king of comedy]

I have second thoughts about seeing it.

[MA]

Is it the show or the movie?

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by MikaelaArsenault

Is it the show or the movie?

The movie which is based on the show.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by JamesG

The movie which is based on the show.

The Baywatch Movie is (Sort Of) in the TV Show’s Continuity

[TMC]

Originally Posted by king of comedy

I have second thoughts about seeing it.

This was quite obviously an attempt on cashing on the Jump Street formula (the recent Chips movie did the same thing). The problem is Baywatch was already pretty campy on its own whereas the original 21 Jump Street the show took itself seriously. The Jump Street movies therefore used it as an opportunity to go meta and make fun of Hollywood being desperate on reboots and lack of originality and by making it crude as possible because did we really need a 21 Jump Street reboot in 2012? But the film itself was actually still respectful in tone for fans of the show, had plenty of heart, weird realistic social commentary, great parody of the high school and action movie genre, and most importantly it was hilarious on its own.

[Mace Dolex]

I never cared for the TV show and I already knew going in this movie like the recent CHIPS one would not be a faithful adaptation of the show so it's no surprised that it's not doing well, it's pretty much Baywatch in name only.

For me I thought it had it's moments but it wasnt' great, they could turned down the crude sexual jokes a bit but the actors are likable, in a way it was like the CHIPS movie.

If even a hint of a sequel does occur then it should be a mash-up of Baywatch and CHIPS.

[HauntedThunderman94]

Not surprised, these old 60/70s/80s sitcoms/drama turned feature length films don't usually fare well. The only ones I can think of that were successful were The Brady Bunch movies, Addams Family movies, and the Jump Street movies.

Overall most of them were awful and box office flops (Bewitched, Lost in Space, Car 54, Where Are You, Sgt Bilko, The Avengers, Miami Vice, The Honeymooners, Land of the Lost, The A-Team, CHIPs, The Mod Squad, Wild Wild West, My Favorite Martian)

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by HauntedThunderman94

Not surprised, these old 60/70s/80s sitcoms/drama turned feature length films don't usually fare well. The only ones I can think of that were successful were The Brady Bunch movies, Addams Family movies, and the Jump Street movies.

Overall most of them were awful and box office flops (Bewitched, Lost in Space, Car 54, Where Are You, Sgt Bilko, The Avengers, Miami Vice, The Honeymooners, Land of the Lost, The A-Team, CHIPs, The Mod Squad, Wild Wild West, My Favorite Martian)

They didn't fare well w/ the critics but the 2 Charlie's Angels films and The Dukes of Hazzard had moderately successful box office runs. Denzel Washington's The Equalizer also had mixed reviews but a decent box office run.

Harrison Ford's The Fugitive did great, whereas the sequel U.S. Marshals didn't. There's also Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible blockbuster franchise and Leslie Nielsen's Naked Gun movies.

[TMC]

http://www.looper.com/67609/baywatch-box-office-bomb/

It got awful reviews

Baywatch immediately began to sink when reviews were released, with critics panning the movie for basically being a money grab (something which clearly didn't work out too well), and questioning the reasoning for it even existing in the first place.*

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter knocked the movie for what he called unnecessary vulgarity, saying that the movie's desire to push the envelope rarely works for anything other than shock value. Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty said even Johnson's charisma couldn't save the film, which he called "a lazy barrage of sad-trombone product-placement gags and red-band boobs-and-boners jokes." Rolling Stone's Peter Travers said the only good thing about the movie was Johnson's performance, describing the script as full of "sitcom leftovers" that leaves no cliche unturned.

It's no secret that awful reviews can drown a film pretty quickly, but for*Baywatch, there were a few mitigating factors that took an already bad situation and made it even worse.

Reviews are a big deal for R-rated comedies

R-rated comedies have faced increasing trouble at the box office recently, with film after film falling far short of expectations. This can be attributed to a number of different things, but it's hard to argue it isn't partially tied to reviews. While studios found early success with films like The Hangover franchise, recent comedies like Vacation, The Brothers Grimsby, and Hot Tub Time Machine 2 all took a nosedive at the box office, especially in the domestic market. Those comedies were also failures with critics, earning 26 percent, 36 percent, and*14 percent on Rotten Tomatoes*respectively.*

Recent R-rated comedies that have done well with audiences have had those positive critical reviews, with the box office success of movies like Spy, Trainwreck, and Deadpool proving that there is definitely still a market for adult humor—if it's done well. However, viewers don't seem to be willing to take the risk on comedies that critics pan, especially when they could just be walking into two hours of bathroom humor and vomit gags.*

Young audiences are starting to rely more on reviews

Baywatch has a disappointing 19 percent on Rotten Tomatoes so far, something studio Paramount credits blames for its disappointing performance. Paramount was apparently relying on younger viewers for the project, and while 45 percent of those who did buy tickets were under the age of 25, the studio believes the negative reviews hurt in this demographic, as a recent internal study found that younger ticket buyers are more likely to look at aggregated scores on services like*Rotten Tomatoes when deciding what to see. The reliance of younger audiences on aggregators means they're missing out on the more nuanced notes in reviews and just seeing that the film is being panned overall. The ease of those services as opposed to having to read full reviews also means audiences are less likely to just go into a film blind to see if they'll enjoy it.*

"The reviews really hurt the film, which scored great in test screenings,"*Paramount president of worldwide marketing and distribution Megan Colligan said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "We were all surprised. It is a brand that maybe relied on a positive critical reaction more than we recognized. … There's no good way to battle it."*

This was one of the worst Memorial Day weekends in decades

Baywatch's awful performance on its opening weekend wasn't entirely its fault. The movie was plopped down in the middle of Memorial Day weekend's worst box office since 1999, with the four-day total coming in at just $172.3 million domestic. The box office hasn't dipped lower since the weekend Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace premiered, when the total haul was $142.5 million.

Some analysts predict the summer as a whole could be a box office bummer, with TV and streaming releases pulling viewers away from the draw of the big screen and possibly resulting in the lowest summer box office in a decade. This summer could see a number of other huge flops joining Baywatch; all of them will be looking to recoup their budgets overseas, where the waters are a bit friendlier.*

It faced tough competition

It's going to be a tough task for any movie to find a way to stop the box office juggernaut that is Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The film was already in its fourth weekend in theaters when Baywatch hit, but it still managed to top the comedy, adding another $25 million to its nearly $800 million worldwide haul.*

The Guardians are definitely a worthy foe for any film, and Baywatch also had another battle-tested enemy—the Pirates of the Caribbean, returning after a six-year break for Dead Men Tell No Tales. The film fell just shy of box office expectations, but still*earned the top spot for the weekend with $62 million. With the buzzy new release and consistent staple Guardians (as well as the likes of Alien: Covenant, Snatched, and surprising rom-com hit Everything, Everything), Baywatch had some stiff competition when it came to pulling in viewers. And there's more competition on the horizon, with*Wonder Woman bursting onto the scene during Baywatch's second weekend*and Tom Cruise's*The Mummy*joining for its third.*

Raunchy adaptations of old TV shows are hard to pull off

Hollywood is officially Reboot Land nowadays, but the movies are starting to see a lot of diminishing returns. Raunchy adaptations of old TV shows aren't easy.*As box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian told The Hollywood Reporter, those types of movies are far more likely to fail than succeed. "Messing with the formula and trying to update these beloved TV shows for today's marketplace is like trying to update a classic recipe by adding a modern twist, and in most cases it just doesn't work,"*he said.*

Baywatch*falls into a similar boat as Dax Shepard's*CHiPs, a hard-R update on the 1970s TV series of the same name. The movie premiered in March to a 16 percent on*Rotten Tomatoes*and a $25.5 million worldwide total, just enough to match its $25 million production budget. Another similar failure was 2010's MacGruber, based on the Saturday Night Live parody sketch of the '80s TV show MacGyver; that film amassed just $9.3 million and a 46 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

However, not all adaptations of old TV shows into R-rated movies have been failures. The*21 Jump Street franchise stands out as an impressive success story, with the first film earning an 85 percent on*Rotten Tomatoes and $201.5 million worldwide and the second earning an 84 percent*Rotten Tomatoes critics rating*and $331.3 million worldwide. Still, as many Baywatch reviews have pointed out, those films are exceptions to the rule, as most movies in this vein quickly go in the opposite direction.*

Baywatch isn't as big a name as the studio thinks it is

Paramount had a few big names attached to*Baywatch, and having Efron and Johnson on board to promote definitely helped get audiences out to the theaters. However, the other big name they were counting on did much less–the name of the property itself. While the*Baywatch*TV series was a minor hit during its run throughout the 1990s and has lived on through minor cult status since then, it isn't currently available on any major streaming service, so it's unlikely that young people would have discovered it like they have discovered some older series. Baywatch might have much less name recognition with the audience Paramount was aiming for than it realized.

Baywatch also shot itself in the foot by disenfranchising fans of the original TV show: this is not a movie those people would likely want to see. The*Baywatch*movie is a hard R, full of inappropriate jokes and cursing; the*Baywatch*TV series, meanwhile, reveled in the jiggle factor but didn't take things past the point of what was allowed on basic cable. Paramount first transformed the material to the point where fans of the original series wouldn't recognize it, then expected young audiences to pick up on a familiar brand and head out to theaters. There's plenty of franchise and reboot fatigue going around right now, and this just didn't pay off.*

The movie didn't know what it wanted to be

One reason the 21 Jump Street franchise succeeded where other films haven't was because the movie knew exactly what it was about: the relationship between Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum). Baywatch, meanwhile, can't seem to decide what it wants to be. The movie plays up the action and plays up the comedy but can't seem to merge the two. It doesn't quite hit the same self-awareness 21 Jump Street has, but it also doesn't take itself seriously enough to deliver real, well-thought-out jokes.

The movie also bounces back and forth between relationships. Sometimes it highlights the romance between Efron's Brody and Alexandra Daddario's Summer; other times it seems like it wants to focus on the family dynamic of the whole team. While the moments showing the relationship between Brody and Johnson's Mitch definitely get the closest to seeming like a good movie, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift never let the moment linger long enough to really sell it; director Seth Gordon, meanwhile, seems more preoccupied with explosions and objectification than with really letting the characters shine.

While no one was expecting Baywatch to have an Oscar-worthy plot, the film's thinness ultimately made it forgettable for viewers who did head out to theaters, and, with the already bad reviews, the movie didn't have a chance to get the word-of-mouth necessary to carry it through choppy box office waters.**

Read More: http://www.looper.com/67609/baywatch..._campaign=clip

[TMC]

http://www.nickiswift.com/71810/kell...-baywatch-set/

Sports*Illustrated Swimsuit model Kelly Rohrbach's acting career is off to a bumpy start amid reports that she has a "diva attitude,"*Page Six is exclusively reporting.

"She thought she was better than everyone," a source said of her attitude on the set of Baywatch. "There was no love lost between her and the rest of the cast."

Even worse, when it came time to promote the film, the source said that "no one wanted to share a junket room with her. She was flipped around to many different pairings."

Rohrbach famously dated actor*Leonardo DiCaprio before splitting in 2016. Apparently, that relationship has gone straight to her head. "She thinks she's a major star, and she's just a model who dated Leo," a source told*Page Six.

Insiders add that Rohrbach has already had fallings out with two major Hollywood management agencies.

"She's a handful, and it's a little early in her career for that," a Baywatch source said.*"Hollywood's full of difficult stars. But she's just not at that level in her career where people have to put up with that."

Well, considering*Baywatch flopped at the box office this summer, Rohrbach might want to re-think her attitude strategy a bit.

Read More: http://www.nickiswift.com/71810/kell..._campaign=clip

[TMC]

(Language)




Obsucrus Lupa takes a look at the recent Baywatch movie.