Hot Take: I can smell what The Rock is cooking here. Someone should flush. Baywatch is a total waste of talent and time.

If you remember the old Baywatch television show which ran from 1991 to 2001, it’s most likely not for a memorable storyline. The show was pretty ridiculous and you were probably tuning in for the slow motion shots of captivating men and women in scantily clad lifeguard outfits but the show was entertaining enough in between those shots to be worthy of watching. The same can’t be said for the big screen abomination that has graced us with its presence in 2017. There are plenty of scantily clad men and women in lifeguard outfits including the sculpted Dwayne Johnson and chiseled Zac Efron and a bevy of hot babes to compete with the television show’s roster of stunning women. The storyline settles for a convoluted plot with a number of dick joke detours and idiotic humor that barely meets the minimum qualifications to be called humor because most of it isn’t funny even though you know that’s the intention.

What’s surprising here is that I’m not really sure how this one can miss so badly. Both Johnson and Efron are more than capable of carrying a comedy and their supporting cast features 2015 Sports Illustrated swimsuit Rookie of the Year Kelly Rohrbach in the C.J. Parker role, Alexandra Daddario who already had experience working with Johnson in San Andreas, Ilfenesh Hadera who appeared in the TV show Billions and is 5’11” and Jon Bass and Hannibal Buress in pure comic relief roles. There’s even cameos by David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson. Unfortunately, the cinematic version of a TV show that never really took itself that serious in the first place is a belly flop of a film that gets sucked under by an undertow of low brow humor and can’t be saved by a remarkably likable cast who can’t breathe new life into this stale attempt at capturing on some ’90s nostalgia.

What does Baywatch do right? Not much. There’s a lot of great shots of the fetching female cast in outfits that show off their assets and for the male cast members, there are plenty of angles of a shirtless Johnson and Efron in action. Sadly, and this is said with no exaggeration, there’s nothing else this movie gets right. As bad as the Baywatch television show was, there was always something about it that allowed you to get caught up in an episode even if the only reason you originally stopped by was to check out some gratuitous shots of men and women wearing practically nothing on broadcast television.

I’m not the only one who is going to warn you that Baywatch is terrible. That might not stop you from diving in. Don’t look for anyone to save you from drowning in its awfulness and wasting 1 hour and 56 minutes on this complete misfire.

“Spoiler Free” Pros

  • Sia Gets a Movie Off
    The soundtrack of Baywatch features some classics (Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” and Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me”) and a number of other recognizable artists but the woman chained to a wall in some sound studio on a Hollywood back lot was allowed to escape this busty bust.

“Spoiler Free” Cons

  • It Never Makes a Splash
    Baywatch could try to poke fun of the original show or celebrate its cheesy success. The movie never does either for very long (there’s a few shots at the show’s affinity for slow motion that kind of work) and instead just appears to be another generic bad action-comedy that fails to do anything memorable.
  • Some Weird Sprint Product Placement
    I’m assuming Sprint paid for the opportunity to have their company featured in the film. The question I have to ask is why?
  • Too Many Unfunny Dick Jokes
    Count them… I bet you need to take off your shoes and socks to count them all.