112.
Baywatch
7/10
First thoughts after finding out about this film and seeing the trailer were why? Did we really need this film and does Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson just want to chuck his name towards anything until he finds the role that will last him a lifetime outside of the wrestling world? With adding Zac Efron and some good looking females, there is an opportunity to make this into a decent summer movie. Since the TV series, each one of those characters and their actors/actresses have been linked in everyone's eyes whenever they are seen anywhere else. Could this once again become a franchise that it once was? Too many questions surrounding such a movie could be a bad thing. Let's hit the beach.
The film begins with Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon arriving at the beach to start his day as the lifeguard on duty. Obviously a massive figure of a guy walking past the main sign of Emerald Bay, to show us where we are. Walking past so many people that know his name, the story is trying to show us how much the guy is loved there. Looking out he sees a guy parasailing and instantly sees danger as the wind changes. The guy gets hoisted up, slams his heads on some rocks. Mitch springs into action and swims to save the man, carrying him out of the water in an over the top introduction with the word 'Baywatch' rising from the waves behind him and three dolphins leaping out of the water to chest bump each other in celebration. Following this, Mitch goes for a jog down the beach and passes by a local cop that he has a little banter with about job roles and then spots a young boy further down the beach picking up a pouch of drugs. His team is made up of Stephanie, his second hand lady and CJ who is a massive objection of affection for Ronnie, a young guy who wants to be a lifeguard for that reason alone. While flying a drone with his mate Dave, CJ runs up to him, in the usual slow motion and wishes him luck in the upcoming lifeguard trials. Ronnie can't get a word out because he is so nervous.
Panning out to the busy boardwalk, a motorbike pulls up and off gets Matt Brody, played by Zac Efron. Brimming with confidence, he tried to introduce himself to Summer, played by the beautiful Alexandra Daddario, to which she replies, 'And no fucks were given'. Welcome to the real world son. Then meeting her again to the trials, she again ignores him to an extent and Brody moves onto talking to Mitch and Stephanie, two more people that don't care for his attitude. Explaining that he doesn't need the trials because he is an Olympic champion, he's told to earn his job. Within this exchange there is plenty of humour as Mitch begins to call Brody by popular boy band names. Meanwhile we are shown some other characters as Victoria, the new owner of the local Huntley club, is in a meeting with a councilman over a real estate deal. In exchange for his services, she gives him a watch that her men wear. This has a dirty deal written all over it. Ronnie is on the beach when he sees CJ again and whilst he is eating he starts to choke, throwing her into action to save him. Through the trusting, Ronnie has got an erection and can't do anything but hide it by throwing himself onto a wooden lawn chair. Things instantly get worse as he gets himself wedged between the planks. Now Mitch comes over to help and a crowd gathers in this brilliant scene and when Mitch tells him that he'll pull it out like a tooth he panics and runs, falling face first and breaking the chair to free himself to everyone's enjoyment.
The next day Mitch rounds up all the hopeful guys and girls that are attending the trails and show them the obstacle course. Brody doesn't care and sits it out instead while Summer smashes it and Ronnie struggles because he's heavier set than the rest of them. He refuses to give up and this impresses the judges. Mitch puts Brody through his own course which is like the worlds strongest man obstacles until screaming is heard from the nearby pier where to children fall and a mother jumps into the sea after them. They spring into action and Brody takes it upon himself to steal a bike and ride the pier to dive in and save them. Only noticing the mother, she fights him off her constantly while Mitch and CJ rescue the kids and back on the beach Brody just looks foolish. By the end of the day, although Mitch wasn't impressed with Brody's technique of saving someone, Ronnie, Summer and Mitch have passed the tests. Mitch has been to his Captain to complain about Brody but he doesn't want to hear it. He just loves the publicity and the fact that he is a skilled swimmer. He lost all his face by being sick in the pool after a night of partying and threw away the chance of a team gold medal in doing so. At night Summer and CJ see Brody sleeping under the dock and CJ offers him a place to stay. Following her to Steph's house, she says she's forgotten something from the car so just knock. It turns out to obviously be Mitch's house and he's allowed to stay up in a spare room on the couch where there are mini figures of Mitch watching him. On the water, we are back to the councilman and Victoria Leeds talking business and the guy needs more time to finalise the deals. This obviously isn't great and Leeds's two thugs deal with him once he tried to black mail her for selling drugs. As the guys continue their training, Leeds pulls up and invites the team to an open house with a little bit of flirting. Meanwhile Steph answers a call that a boat is on fire so the whole team and trainees get on their boat and jet skis and head to the area. Mitch jumps under the water which is on fire and head into the boat to save the first girl, then moving onto the second. Now Brody makes his move but can't find his way back to the surface past any water, putting his own life in danger. Once he is saved, they see a guy passed out on the top of the boat but he is already dead and it's the councilman. Back on shore, Ellerbee, the cop, shows up and tells them all to stay out of a police matter but we know this isn't going to happen. Again everyone is cheesed off with Brody's stupid actions.
At Leeds's place Dave is working for her in tech and he tried to blackmail her about the murder, She's quite impressed with his balls but she has something else in mind. The Baywatch team sits down to some grub and discuss the dead body and the fact that Mitch seen the girls had some drugs on them, the same type that washed up earlier. The know they have to attend the open house and find out what's going on. They go undercover and split up, each knowing their role for the night. Brody is on look out which he isn't too pleased about. He does manage to get Leeds alone though and they start drinking together but he's more focused on the alcohol than trying to get some decent information out of her. Ronnie's turn to work his magic and distract her with some dancing whilst the rest of the crew sneak behind doors to find anything they can. Once they find some drugs in fish barrels, Mitch confronts Brody about failing again, the fact that he only thinks about himself and not the team. Telling him that he's just a lifeguard upsets Mitch and he goes for Brody but pulls put and Brody falls into the pool, trying not to be humiliated, he brushes it off by telling everyone to do shots. Meanwhile the thugs have taken Dave's body out to sea and fill his suit with meat chunks for the sharks.
The next morning Brody come to apologise and Mitch tells him he's great on his own but part of a team doesn't work for his ego. Begging for a second chance, he tells him that he noticed the watch the councilman was wearing was the same as Leeds's thugs.
The trio of Mitch, Brody and Summer head to the morgue to look at the Councilman's body and file to see what the cause of death actually was. Finding out that he had no smoke in his lungs means that he died before the fire started. Mitch orders Brody to look under the guys meat and veg, in the beginning of some hilarious scenes, for some injection holes, this is just to humiliate him further as he takes pictures on his phone. Soon Summer can see the thugs coming and they hide in the draws but Brody picks one with a dead body already in. To make it worse, some fat is dripping onto his face. Outside the thugs are switching the autopsy files. The fat dripping is now too much and Brody bursts out of the draw to sanitize his mouth. They are further exposed as the phone Summer was using to record things starts to ring. One of the thugs, Leon grabs it and runs out with the other. He tosses the phone to the other thug and Mitch goes after the carrier whilst the other two chase down Leon. Chasing him on a jet ski, they soon crash and end up fighting in a little girls room and Mitch puts a diaper bin on his head and knocks him out the window calling him 'shit head'. Great pun and this film is full of them. The trio now meet with Ellerbee who tells them to stop getting involved with the case. The Captain is now involved for the same reason, explaining that they did have evidence but it was destroyed, Thorpe the Captain threatens to fire Mitch if he continues and the thug gets away with it.
Back to the open water and Mitch and Brody are watching the Huntley get their fish from a different company which is how he thinks they are smuggling their drugs onto the beach. They both go undercover once again and sneak into the kitchen where they find them all handling drugs so he calls Ellerbee to report it but he's ignoring the call as he has found another body on the beach and this time the call is on loud speaker to that Thorpe can hear it too. Thorpe orders Mitch into his office to fire him and makes Brody the new Lieutenant but they put a fight that it should go to Stephanie since she knows the beach. Not caring, he flaunts that he has promoted Brody in front of everyone else and although he tried to say no, Thorpe threatens him with a bad record on his community service. The others hate what's happened and although he tries to defend himself, they feel that he hasn't done enough to stop it. Brody starts to handle things on the beach, even without everyone else's support and stops some thieves and on opening their cooler, finds the usual drugs. Asks the girls to help him hand the stuff back to the victims, the others start having sympathy. Brody goes to Ellerbee's office with a smoothie for him but his actual plan is to steal some files using the cooler that the thieves were using.
Now we see Mitch in his new job selling phones and he's cut off any connection with his old team who are worried about him. Serving a guy but clearly with no clue about what he is selling he hears a voice, like God and looking up he wonder what that person is doing there. Turning around we see the one and only Hoff! The original Mitch who inspires him not to give up and that his people need him. Brody approaches Summer with the file and shows Dave's corpse to the team. Ronnie notices his old friends and remembers that he was working with Leeds on tech stuff so he has a go at hacking into the servers. They know something is up because not all the cuts on the body are bite marks but stab wounds. Finding her plans to privatize the beach so that she has no competition on selling drugs, the lads tell the girls and they finally all come back together to fight this. The team gets into another party, this time on a yacht and they find one of Leeds's oppositions tied up and he's been missing for days. Meanwhile Brody swims under the yacht to find where the drugs are hidden. He tells Summer to get back in touch with Mitch to tell him that he was right and when Brody gets into the boat, he's knocked out by the thugs. The goons take him to another boat and put him inside a shark cage and drop him to the bottom to drown. Lying there and ready to die he sees Summer swimming towards him as his saviour, kissing her underwater. Laughter starts from the audience as he opens his eyes and see that it's actually Mitch to save the day.
Leeds is now preparing a helicopter to get away during the firework show but Ronnie hacks in to get the display to start early and stop the landing. Panic gets to him at first but he calms down thanks to CJ kissing him. As the display carries on Mitch and Brody fight the thugs again and win again as one falls and Leeds shoots another for not being strong enough. Chasing her down, she shoots Mitch and he falls into the water. Getting back up as he holds Brody to gun point and explains how Thorpe has been on her pay roll all along. Ronnie see a big red switch and pushes it for luck and Mitch sees a count down begin on a firework which he grabs and points at Leeds, blowing her into pieces. Mitch reveals that he's alive by a sea urchin wound giving him adrenaline but in fact is in need of medical attention, brilliant.
The film comes to a close with some loose stories tied up. Ellerbee apologises, Brody punches Thorpe who gets arrested and Ronnie wakes up in CJ's after hooking up. Back on the beach, Brody and Summer seem to be starting a relationship and the three trainees are instated as actual lifeguards. Once last throwback is that the new Captain is introduced and it is the one and only Casey Jean, Pamela Anderson, who enters in super slow mo. Running along the beach in the iconic slow motion shot closes the film with Brody falling hard into the sand and the credits show some out takes from the movie. The Hoff asks if he can be in the sequel which may or may not actually happen.
Going into this with such low expectation let me enjoy this so much more. The humour was the biggest factor and although mostly crude, it was great, along with Johnson and Efron's relationship on screen and name calling, I could laugh at watching this again. Even thought some moments were over the top at times, it's what the film needed and most of the coast are beautiful specimens but to have one guy come out as a winner who is more along the lines of normal society, it got you cheering him on. I'm not sure a sequel will be as successful but only time will tell. This time around I once again enjoyed a comedy with Efron in and it seems Dwayne can't do wrong at the minute unless it involves the Fast and Furious joke of a franchise. The fight scenes, water scenes, slow motion and storyline was a lot like the old television show and worked so well in rolling back the years.
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