Baywatch

This movie has a profound identity crisis. It both gives you, the viewer, a wink and a nudge about the absurdity of life guards solving high stakes crimes, but then DOES IT ANYWAY. In fact, the movie itself calls out the plot’s very existence as absurd, but barrels right along with it. Never mind the fact that it wastes two great comedic actors in Zac Efron and The Rock in a painfully unfunny script. About the only clever thing is that the movie flips the show’s body obsession on its head, by spending more time letting at its two males leads than the female cast. No small feat when your movie has ALEXANDRA DADDARIO. But even here, that’s a problem; by almost deliberately ignoring the women, the movie is unbalanced in its superficiality. It makes for an amusing political statement, but for a brainless movie like this, it feels wrong.  This movie wants it both ways; it wants to be clever but serious, smart but stupid, an homage to the original show but also a middle finger towards it. And because it can’t pick a path, it just stands there, going nowhere, doing nothing, failing at everything. It’s not bad because it’s done poorly; it’s bad because you can plainly see how it could’ve been done better.