Give them credit for not featuring any gratuitous TV show cameos though.
Next summer’s big-screen adaptation of the popular Baywatch television series may not be a high prestige film or one of 2017’s most-anticipated, but there’s a promise of potential fun for those of us who enjoy crass comedy and skin.
Director Seth Gordon (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters) has delivered R-rated laughs before with the very funny Horrible Bosses, and he’s found a game pair of leads for his latest in Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron. Both actors are as comfortable in beach attire as they are in crude studio comedies (Pain & Gain, Neighbors), and pairing their muscular frames with a bevy of beach babes including Alexandria Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach seems like a recipe for getting butts in seats. Keeping them there will require more than just skin though.
Check out the first trailer below.
It’s immediately clear that Gordon (along with writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift) have modeled their film very specifically on the likes of 21 Jump Street. The opening jab about restoring “the Baywatch brand” is straight out of Lord/Miller’s comedy hit and its sequel, and the awareness of being in on the joke is evident in the joke about slow-motion running.
Plot is clearly an afterthought in this first trailer, and my gut says the actual film will be no different – the team comes together to bring down some generic bad guy – but that’s probably to be expected for a summer comedy. It won’t be a problem if the film can manage to deliver the goods on the comedy front, but judging by this trailer that’s a big, fat, incredibly fit “if.”
The jokes here all seem fairly obvious, and not even the usually reliable Rob Huebel gets a laugh. I’m also hoping Daddario gets some better material beyond simply talking about her own breasts. Still, it’s early, and many more trailers will drop before next summer, so we’ll reserve judgement until the red-band hits with a sure to be hilarious David Hasselhoff/Pamela Anderson cameo.
Baywatch jiggles into theaters on May 17th, 2017.
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