"Baywatch" is no day on the beach.
Despite lengthy sequences of attractive women and men jogging toward the camera and jiggling in slow motion, and a cool star in Dwayne Johnson, the film is nothing more than a serviceable also-ran in this year's crop of silly spring movies. While the eye is rewarded (and the ear, with a hit-packed soundtrack), the brain is unfulfilled.
To those nostalgic for pop culture, the story has a familiar ring: A hard-nosed veteran (Johnson, largely absent his usual attitude and humor) and a wisecracking rookie (Zac Efron, wide-eyed and mirthlessly peppy) must overcome their differences and unite against common enemies. This time the bromantic relationship isn't between buddy cops but Florida lifeguards policing their seaside beat.
It's the sort of self-mocking meta-throwback to '90s TV cheese that worked so well in the "21 Jump Street" parodies and nowhere else. Director Seth Gordon ("Horrible Bosses") and screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift ("Freddy vs. Jason") dumb down that potential with madcap chases and manic stunts and wry repartee.
In one typical moment, Johnson is propositioned for a quickie by a woman he is rescuing from a burning ship. Try as the filmmakers might to inflate this retread, it remains flat.
Johnson inherits the role of surf watchdog Mitch Buchannon from its creator David Hasselhoff (who walks on with a much less entertaining cameo than he received a couple of weeks ago in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"). Likable and by the book, he runs his guard station with military attention to detail. Efron's hotshot newcomer is a former Olympic swimming star with little interest in teamwork. When little plastic baggies of drugs begin washing up on the beach, the pair try to catch the slippery eel who is smuggling them in.
The film doesn't try to make this premise credible for a moment. "Everything that you guys are talking about sounds like a really entertaining but far-fetched TV show," Efron says. "Baywatch" exaggerates everything that made the old show popular, and at times does that gleefully. Co-stars Alexandra Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach are on hand mostly to wear skintight latex and look swimsuit-model ravishing. They were very well cast, their contribution to the film all the more pronounced when Efron jumps genders, donning a low-cut woman's dress, wig and makeup for a Halloween-caliber disguise.
That's the sort of "crazy, right?" overreach the R-rated "Baywatch" provides at length. There is little genuine wit to be found in this awkward action/comedy hybrid. In its place, the script gives the story's cliches a coating of foul-mouthed, genital-exposing and mildly race-charged comedy.
If Johnson and Efron had a more compelling on-screen partnership, this saltwater adventure might seem less shallow. But they don't seem to have much in common on-screen past their pumped-to-the-max physiques and flair for holding close-ups. Their characters spend almost every moment verbally head-butting each other. Many viewers will feel that they have had a similar experience with "Baywatch." The whole motley carnival is at best indifferently directed, at worst, aggressively tedious.
