Baywatch (**1/2)

We've seen this movie a million times. There's nothing particularly original this time around, and especially considering it's based on the camp 90's TV show, it only contributes to this year's extensive run of 'movies-based-on-old-TV-shows.'  BAYWATCH isn't unwatchable, especially in the moments where it is self-aware of its own silliness. Would I recommend it? No. Can you sit through it? Of course.

Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson) runs a baywatch team in costal Florida as though it's the Marines. His staff is trained in everything but hand-to-hand combat, and the waitlist to join the team is long with each new Summer season. Candidates must complete a rigorous physical test in order to qualify, and from there only 3 recruits are hired on. One of them is Matt Brody (Zac Efron), a blue-eyed beauty who has won 2 Olympic gold medals and is cocky in his confidence with the job. During his last Olympic relay, he threw up in the pool and lost his team a medal. Now he's broke and looking for work.

Essentially the movie becomes a focus on the rivalry/friendship between these two men. Sometimes it's funny, but usually it's not. After discovering bags of drugs on the beach, Buchannon decides to take on his own personal investigation to bring whatever criminals to justice. When Brody asks why they don't just call the police (just like the majority of sane audience members will), there's some baloney reason about values and "doing the right thing." Whatever that means. What follows is a crime comedy that's so by the book and cliched that we can all but recite specific dialogue at any given moment. The funniest parts come when, well... I'm not sure what the funniest moments were, but I will start by saying that the gaggle of penis jokes were not among the highlights.

We also have a forced romance between Brody and a wide-eyed fellow recruit, the comic relief who is overweight and has an excess of nipple hair, the lowpoint where Buchannon is fired and finds a job at Sprint, Zac Efron in inexplicable drag, and then about 6 or 7 additional penis jokes for good measure. David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson even make cameos in the film, through their scenes are equal parts confusing and lacking in laughs. I give this movie two and a half only because it's so darn silly. Silly as in "laughing at it," not "laughing with it." This isn't a movie that was designed to be anything more than a farce. You chuckle at the stupidity of it all. Hey, if the movie wasn't 2 hours long I might have been even more favorable about it.