Movie review: Baywatch

Info: Baywatch is a 2017 action comedy film based on the television series of the same name. The main stars are Dwayne Johnson playing Mitch, Zac Efron playing Matt, Jon Bass playing Ronnie, Alexandra Daddario playing Summer, Ilfenesh Hadera playing Stephanie, Kelly Rohrbach playing CJ and Priyanka Chopra playing Victoria. The plot follows lifeguard team led by Mitch Buchannon. Along with just saving drowning people, they decide to take down a drug lord. Movie is 1 hour and 56 minutes long.

Note: Plot has all spoilers, impression some and recommendation none.

Plot: The movie starts with Matt Brody (Zac Efron) coming to the beach to be a lifeguard in Mitch's (Dwayne Johnson) team. We immediately find out why Matt is there. He was/is a famous swimmer who led his team, but lost the championship so they kicked him out of the team and he's broke. He also had to take this job as a part of a plea deal. Also, captain thought Matt was popular enough for Baywatch publicity. However, he soon finds out that Mitch is not fooling around and he takes his job very seriously. Even too seriously when he, with his team, takes on a case of finding a drug dealer that has been popping up on his beach. Along with this plot, there's one that follows their friendships and relationships where we see a spark between Matt and Summer, Mitch and Stephanie and then CJ and Ronnie. After hearing what the Baywatch team is doing, the captain fires Mitch and puts Matt in charge. Determined to prove he didn't plan this, Matt decides to take down the drug dealer. He asks the team for help and they all go undercover on a boat with Victoria Leeds, the mastermind behind the drug case. The action doesn't go as planned and Matt is trapped and Victoria tries to drown him. Mitch saves him in the last minute and they eventually take down Victoria (Mitch blows her up with fireworks). Captain is arrested and the team is back together with Mitch leading them. The last scene reveals new captain Casey Jean (CJ) Parker (Pamela Anderson).

My impression: As I was a huge fan of Baywatch series, just hearing the names of the characters was great. I liked that they embraced some parts as parody and they admitted some scenes were over the top. And it blended in with the rest of the plot really nicely. Slow motion scenes were sometimes too much, but they also addressed them immediately in the movie which was a nice change from all the rest of the movies. Appearance of David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson just made this movie even better. The original Baywatch team came and that's all I needed. However, I don't think this new cast lives up to the original cast (no one ever will, of course). There we got bunch of episodes and characters could evolve. It's not the case here.

Recommendation: Well, this is hard to say. I know the critics hated this movie and it doesn't have high grades on any site. However, me being a Baywatch series fan, I liked it. Nostalgia probably hit me, but I can't complain too much. However, there isn't actually a plot. There is, but there isn't much happening (if that would be a good description). You can also take this as a parody to original series. Even though I loved it, I think majority wouldn't and it's a movie you'll either love or hate, I think.

Have you watched the original Baywatch series? What do you think of this movie?

See you next Sunday ♥