Baywatch

If you prefer watching people sit on a beach to actually sitting on a beach for Memorial Day weekend, there’s a new Baywatch movie in theaters today, starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron. Though Baywatch endured in syndication for over a decade, it’s not like there was a massive fanbase out there begging for a big-screen version; the film, directed by Seth Gordon, is mostly a lighthearted sendup of the old series about heroic lifeguards.

One of the least funny running jokes in the new Baywatch movie — which is really saying something because there are a lot of unfunny running jokes in the new Baywatch movie — involves these lifeguards constantly inserting themselves into all sorts of situations that fall well beyond their jurisdiction. They refer to laughable old cases that have nothing to do with rescuing drowners, a nod to the old Baywatch TV show that serves as the film’s source material and chief target. But the case the takes up most of the film’s inexplicably expansive runtime (116 minutes! For a Baywatch movie!) is just as absurd, with the lifeguards trying to bring down a drug ring and real-estate swindle centered around their Southern California beach. Ha ... ha?

There was no jocularity on Baywatch when I was a child. These brave men and women in red bathing suits were doing very important things, like guarding lives, performing CPR, running in slow-motion, and occasionally starting totally random spinoff shows featuring sea monsters. The new Baywatch movie is a new breed of ‘watch. These guys do joke around, constantly. It’s Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron as mismatched partners on the lifeguard scene, joking about one another’s testicles, performing highly unprofessional autopsies, and even arguing over severed limbs. Seriously: Not your Hasselhoff’s Baywatch.

Dwayne Johnson’s Baywatch movie is almost upon us, and as an extra incentive, the film debuted a new trailer today that focuses on Priyanka Chopra’s extremely fashionable villain.

What came first, the raunchy beach comedy or the Baywatch movie adaptation? Hollywood seems to have discovered in recent years that it can take an existing license  —  typically one associated with a semi-popular television series  —  and give it new life as a profane comedy for adults. Sure, there are probably a handful of Baywatch purists out there who have watched the sophomoric humor in the trailers with horror, but for everyone else? A vague recollection of the Baywatch brand and an appetite for 21 Jump Street-esque humor is all they need to be enticed.

Memorial Day weekend is coming a day early for fans of people running on beaches in slow motion: Paramount announced today that Baywatch is opening in theaters a day early, on Thursday, May 25 (so technically that Wednesday night), instead of the 26th.

It’s weird — with every new trailer, the upcoming big-screen reboot of beloved ‘90s TV series Baywatch appears to get a little bit better. The first trailer promised a lightly amusing clone of the smart-alecky 21 Jump Street reboot, the second trailer advertised a competently-produced action tentpole with a healthy sprinkling of meta humor, and now, the so-called “official” trailer (does that make the first two unofficial?) teases what appears to be a sincerely funny comedy. At the very least, whoever cut this thing made it abundantly clear that stars Zac Efron and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson have more chemistry than an eighth-grade science class.

Some people stand in the darkness. Some people make movie versions of campy ’90s television series about lifeguards. It’s gonna be all right. They’re always ready, they won’t let you out of their sight, etc.

Baywatch continues its advertising campaign with a new set of motion posters to showcase each character that include Dwayne Johnson giving us the finger, Zac Efron getting his tongue stuck to the glass, and Priyanka Chopra being an ice queen.

Much like the warmer seasons, that Baywatch movie continues to come at us right on schedule. A new series of character posters copies one very well-known Game of Thrones phrase almost verbatim, but tweaks it juuust a little bit. Dwayne Johnson and his lifeguard crew are here to assure us that “summer is coming,” and Baywatch is coming right along with it.