If you’re looking for an evening full of belly laughs, eye candy, and a break for your full-day working brain, then catching Baywatch is an ideal option.
The 117-minute film was surprisingly hilarious when I caught the preview last week. While I grew up watching Baywatch, I don’t ever recall it being so funny. A lot of the jokes had Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s stamp on it – which it should since he’s one of the executive producers.
While some jokes were rather slapstick in the beginning, the rest were funny one-liners and comebacks between Dwayne’s character, Mitch Buchannon, and Zan Efrons’ character, Matt Brody. They were delivered in believable banter and smoothly transitioned leaving you continuously laughing out loud.
Plot lines are not important in this movie, I mean, come on, it’s Baywatch. But it’s nice to note that the eye candy for both men and women were during the scenes where trainees try-out to be lifeguards. There’s a lot of muscle and strength on show which makes for great appreciation.
Zan Efron’s what-seems-like 16 abs and Dwayne’s massive shoulders are enough for any woman to swoon over and man to strive for. The ladies – Kelly Rohrbach playing CJ Parker (the Pamela Anderson equivalent), Alexandra Daddario playing Summer Quinn, and Illfenesh Hadera playing Stephanie Holden (the Alexandra Paul equivalent) – are in their signature skimpy red swimsuits that show off their lean, healthy bodies – beautiful to admire for both sexes.
I was especially excited about seeing Priyanka Chopra who plays the villain in this movie. It’s probably my first time seeing her as a baddie. While not thoroughly convincing, she did come across a tad irritating which should mean she nailed her role.
Dwayne and Zac have the usual plot of mentor versus reluctant mentee. The story line is nothing much to write about – there’s some blowing up and action scenes, the working-as-a-team theme, lessons learnt and some pretty scenes where the characters dress to the nines. But it’s all entertaining throughout.
My only wish was for Pamela Anderson’s cameo to have some lines especially since David Hasselhoff (the original Mitch Buchannon) got a few. No fair. But it was a delight to see her again in Baywatch.
Rating: 4/5
Baywatch is rated M18 as there’s quite a lot of swearing and a scene involving a dead man’s private body parts on display. It opens on June 1 in all cinemas in Singapore.
spanaech@sph.com.sg
