The COARD: Baywatch

The COARD goes swimming. Sometimes you have to get on that board and try to ride the big one, but sometimes the waves send you flying. You attempt to build an elaborate sand castle, but the rising tide comes in and sweeps it away. You try to resurrect a cheesy 80s TV franchise, and...

Cody: Well, it wasn't horrible. But was it any good? It's really tough to say. This movie left me internally befuddled. I laughed hard. More than once! I also rolled my eyes, mock vomited, and faked sleep. It feels like I should say this movie was mediocre, and that's probably the best way to describe it. Although, I want it to be clear that this movie was never mediocre in any one single moment. If you pull a random three minute clip of this film, it's either going to be pretty freaking funny or borderline painful to watch, with very little in between. That just doesn't happen often! And nobody was immune! Overall, the cast did a competent job holding up the movie as far as they could, but still. Dwayne Johnson displayed his usual charm but had some stinker moments and lines. Efron was up and down. Daddario was mostly solid, but I'm not prepared to rave about her either. The best moments definitely included Johnson and Efron sharing the screen, and I feel satisfied with my expectations for the two of them going in. There's just so many other things that torpedoed expectations that I'm left with that befuddlement. Maybe Roy has more clarity.

Roy: This is our fourth movie review this summer. Maybe you're tired of Cody and I agreeing over everything. Well it's not our fault we're right! I blame Seth Gordon for making a movie with an outrageous premise and only passing moments of good comedy. At times, Baywatch knew exactly what it was. A show about lifeguards pretending to be police. Which is even more ridiculous if you say that out loud. Because they were, at times aware of this fact, they made fun of themselves and the original show. These were some of the better moments. However, this film fell prey to the same problem that the original show did. The story would progress and they took themselves a little too seriously... Ok, way too seriously. Which was odd because it was clear they did not set out with that intent. Unfortunately the deeper in the story we got, the worse this movie became. Baywatch was at its best in the light moments, unfortunately when it tried to get real it fell flat on its face. The saving grace was how well it was cast. Namely the two leads. That's not to say the supporting cast drowned in failure. On the contrary they showed up to work and got the job done, even if none of them shined. If this movie did not have the star power of Johnson and Efron as the driving force, it would have been an unmitigated disaster.

Pretty actor,
looking to be taken seriously

Cody: I agree with Roy that our agreement is because of our superior ability to review films. Agree agree agree. Anyway, I really want Efron to be better than he is. He hasn't done anything legitimately good since the first Neighbors. We Are Your Friends was obviously a disaster, Dirty Grandpa was almost decent, and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates was mostly painful. I just...I just want my boy Efron to be considered a success. At the very least a solid lead in funny films. He's more than just a pretty face! I swear! Dwayne Johnson is in every movie, so he can afford a less than epic outing like this. Sigh. He's got a movie coming out this Christmas where he stars alongside Hugh Jackman called The Greatest Showman. No trailer yet, but I am tentatively hopeful for this one. Are you with me, Roy? Eh?

Roy: Well Cody, the good news is your boy Zac has accepted the litmus test that will prove once and for all if he's got the chops to make it, or if he's destined to be just another pretty face. He is going to star in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile which is the story of one Ted Bundy. If Efron transforms himself into arguably the worst serial killer in our country's history than he will definitely be viewed differently. Only time will tell. Also, I know what everyone is thinking, and I resent the implication that we are occupying our time with Zac Efron filler because we chose to review a sub-par movie. This is an important issue! Who would have thought that the kid from High School Musical would get this far? Not us, and certainly none of you. You want me to sum up Baywatch for you in one sentence? It was a movie that was at times painful in its execution, while managing to be legitimately funny in small moments. There. That's the movie. If you do not handle adult humor and male nudity well, you definitely should not go see this movie. If you are bored and have nothing going on..... you definitely have better options available to you. I'm not saying don't waste your time, but you will definitely feel like you mostly wasted 120 minutes when you are through.

We will now discuss the key plot points, or lack thereof, for this movie. If you would prefer to avoid spoilers, this is your exit point.

Cody: Okay, so let's stay on Efron for a minute. His character was directly based on Ryan Lochte, right? The writers either did this on purpose or they did it on accident, but nobody can convince me it isn't the case. The worst parts of the movie that included Efron were centered around his arrogant but insecure Olympic swimmer profile. Although, it was still better than What Would Ryan Lochte Do?. The fun flip side of this was Johnson refusing to ever call Efron's character by his real name, peaking when Johnson straight up called him, "High School Musical." I would like to know how many of those lines were improvised, because my guess is it was a lot of them. Basically, Dwayne Johnson is the best.

Zac is wondering the same thing as the rest of us

Roy: If there was one Olympic swimmer that we all had to bet on staying up late the night before the relay and losing it for his team by vomiting in the pool, we would all choose Ryan Lochte. But that story line didn't bother me too badly. Efron did a great job with what he was given. There were a few things that really bothered me. Mainly, the chubby dork in the movie. I haven't seen him in anything else, and I won't bother learning his name because I'd rather forget him all together. This is a trope that is familiar to many movies. The dork longs to run with the cool kids, and for some unexplained reason they let him in. This was fine, we've all seen it before. Baywatch didn't add anything new to that particular story line. In addition, the guy acts like a pathetic moron in front of the woman he is in love with and has zero redeeming qualities when it comes to wooing his muse. We all have come to expect that he will get the hard friend zone from the hot girl he's slobbering over, right? Wrong. Inexplicably, they end up together. It would almost be believable if the two actors had any chemistry with one another. Sadly, they did not. Can someone have negative chemistry? Because they did. It was negative amounts of chemistry between the lovely Kelly Rohrbach and "the guy with the most underwhelming IMDB filmography ever." Some of the most painful on screen moments came courtesy of these two.

Cody: They literally had negative chemistry. I found myself frequently wondering if the material was more to blame or the actors. It was a legitimately tough debate. Both were quite bad. There was only one pairing in the movie that was worse than those two. Priyanka Chopra and anybody. Particularly when she was doing solo duty as the villain. The scenes with Oscar from The Office felt like they should be tense, but were so far from it that I wondered if they were supposed to be funny. They weren't funny either. I still have no clue if she was a villain that was supposed to be taken seriously (not even close) or was meant to be a funny cliche of action movie villains (closer, but still missing the mark). There's a central theme here. I did far too much thinking in this movie. I walk into a summer blockbuster starring the likes of Efron and Johnson, and I want to clear my mind and laugh at some mindless entertainment for two hours. I laughed enough to not be angry about the whole experience, but I thought, debated, and questioned far more. Viewers shouldn't have to decide if you're trying to be serious or funny. It should just organically occur. The body of evidence suggests Baywatch was ultimately more bad than it was good.

Roy: I've trashed this movie enough, let's quickly talk about the bright spots. Almost everything Dwayne Johnson did worked. He was funny when it was called for, and he was believable as the over-achiever who saves everyone. Unfortunately, he also gave us maybe the worst moment of the entire movie. As Chopra is making her escape he delivers his "action hero killing the bad guy clever quip." Except it was terrible. and made no sense. In the pivotal moment in the movie he kills her with an industrial firework (you read that correctly) and says, "I'm oceanic ________!" That blank spot is reserved for the MF-Bomb that he dropped to give the poorly written line some depth maybe? I'm not sure because as bad as it reads now, experiencing it live was worse. I'm irritated with this movie, it could have been so much more. Wait. I said I would talk about the bright spots, didn't I? Yikes. Well. Sometimes you kill the bad guy girl with an over-sized roman candle, and sometimes you vomit in the pool. I think we all know which route Baywatch took.