Baywatch – Movie Review

Director Seth Gordon (The Goldbergs, Horrible Bosses, and Identity Thief) steps onto the beach and lends his comedy chops to the big screen adaptation of Baywatch starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron. So, is it any good?While Gordon does his best to put a solid effort into Baywatch, the problem is it feels like it wasn’t made for him to direct. The other movies he has directed in the past felt like the perfect projects for him, but this one just doesn’t seem to work. Whilst filming hot babes and hot guys on the beach running in slow motion (like in the show) is all fun to look at for everyone, it never really gets to the point. Sometimes you wonder if it even has a point.The cast members do everything they can. They improvise, they take off their tops (mainly Efron and Johnson), they do weight lifting, loads of running, etc, but they just can’t seem to save this movie no matter how hard they try. The villain Victoria Leeds (played by Priyanka Chopra) is also not a very good choice for a villain. She didn’t have a good presence and wasn’t intimidating enough to make us think she was really evil.

The chemistry between Efron and Johnson is actually quite interesting, and a lot of the gags work between them. Using references like Justin Bieber and High School Musical, it does have its moments of comedy genius. The problem is there are several of these kinds of jokes thrown in there and 80% of them just don’t work. So much of the movie’s comedy revolved around dick jokes, and while there’s nothing wrong that, the problem is it felt extremely overplayed and overdone.Another problem would be the CGI. In comedy movies normally CGI shouldn’t matter because it’s a comedy and comedy is a joke, but come on… THIS IS TOO FAKE! Whenever there is fire or explosions you just aren’t convinced and it felt like you were looking at a bad 70’s movie, and some of those movies had better fire effects. Even some of the regular backgrounds were fake at times… it makes us wonder if Efron’s body is fake!

I know we sound like we’re bashing this movie extremely hard, but there is goodness in it. The casting of everybody was perfect. John Bass (who looks and acts like Josh Gad) was quite good, as were the Baywatch girls. With a better director, better script, and a better special effects team this movie would have definitely been in much better hands. It’s not disastrous, but it’s definitely something unmemorable and we won’t be watching it again.

BAYWATCH slow motion runs into cinemas on June 1.


Jay and Nick are the best Autistic Reviewers in the world! They’re proud to review movies in the theatre, or in their living room. You can check out more from them on their Facebook page.

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