One star. Rating: R, for pervasive profanity, vulgar sexual content, violence and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang
This misbegotten train wreck
represents the triumph of a pithy high-concept pitch over common sense, plot
logic and artistic integrity.
The Watch may not wind up as
the worst big-studio effort of 2012, but it’ll do until that one comes along.
Words simply fail me. I can’t
believe this mess ever started as an actual script; it feels like so-called
writers Jared Stern, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg got stoned one evening,
jotted wild ’n’ crazy ideas onto pieces of paper, threw them in the air,
assembled them randomly and then handed the stack to director Akiva Schaffer,
who apparently saw no reason to argue.
Schaffer, it should be noted, was
a longtime writer and director — of digital shorts — on TV’s Saturday Night
Live. He paused long enough, during that tenure, to direct Andy Samberg in one
of 2007’s limpest comedies, Hot Rod. Haven’t ever heard of it? That’s to your
advantage; don’t go looking.
At the risk of repeating an old
cliché, on the basis of that film and his “work” here on The Watch, Schaffer
ain’t fit to direct traffic. Nor would I let him direct me to a market half a
block away; he’d undoubtedly get it wrong.
Failed comedies can be
egregiously awful, and this one certainly qualifies. The dialogue sounds
under-rehearsed; the characters lack continuity or credibility; the plot
sorta/kinda stumbles from one scene to the next. As is typical of too many
numbnuts “doofus projects” these days, profanity and vulgarity are tossed about
like spent condoms — actually one of the many running gags — in the vain hope
that such elements can draw laughter. Not because any of the lines are actually
funny, but ... just because.
Random dialogue exchanges are
reflexively homophobic, racist, sexist and all other –ists that come to mind;
about the best that can be said, is that these guys are equal-opportunity
offenders.
And as bad as the limp-noodle
efforts at slapstick humor are, things get even worse when Christophe Beck’s
soundtrack swells with what’s intended to be feigned emotion, for a scene
Schaffer apparently hopes will be heartwarming. Gaaahhh...
On a purely business level, this
film also represents the most egregiously excessive example of product
placement I’ve ever seen; it’s little more than a 100-minute ad for Costco.
Bearing that in mind, Costco should have picked up this flick’s reported budget
of $70 million (!!!): an amount that somebody will have to write off as a loss
... and (one hopes) a lesson well learned.
Ben Stiller, who rarely embraces
a bad film that he can’t further sabotage, stars as Evan Troutwig, senior
manager of the Glenview Costco. Evan fancies himself an all-inclusive man of
the people, and is known for forming jogging groups and other neighborly
activities. Turns out, though, that Evan uses these extra-curricular activities
as a means of avoiding friendships and close relationships ... or so we’re
told, during a moment of cheap armchair psychology.
When one of his employees is
killed quite gruesomely while on Costco night guard duty, Evan organizes a
neighborhood watch program. His impassioned, civic-minded call for support
attracts only three takers: fun-loving Bob (Vince Vaughn), who has rather
serious parenting issues with his teenage daughter, Chelsea (Erin Moriarty);
Franklin (Jonah Hill), a law enforcement reject looking for payback; and
Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade), a recent divorcé looking for love.
Evan is serious about their newly
formed neighborhood watch; the other three view this “club” solely as an excuse
to drink beer, swap dirty stories and perhaps kick some ass. Evan’s efforts to
arrest their wild ’n’ crazy antics are about as successful as Schaffer’s fitful
attempts to make us like his film.
Further complications come courtesy
of a condescending local cop (Will Forte), an irascible old coot (R. Lee Ermey)
who views the watch members as a joke, the arrogant young stud (Nicholas Braun)
hitting on Chelsea too aggressively, and Evan’s oddly sinister new neighbor
(Billy Crudup).
This so-called comedy’s
“surprise” is that Glenview really IS in serious trouble, having been invaded
by nasty, spiky, tentacled aliens from outer space, which resemble slightly
smaller cousins of the berserker fighters in the Predator franchise. Circumstances
lead our heroes to realize that at least some of these unwanted visitors have
assumed human form by stealing the skin from their victims. Paranoia, anybody?
This particular revelation,
however, merely amplifies the contempt these filmmakers have for us viewers.
Under no circumstances could this alien anatomy successfully don skin and
“pass” for human; the respective shapes aren’t even close. At least the
Raxacoricofallapatorians (Slitheen) in the Dr. Who universe are said to
employ a “compression collar” in order to fit their corpulent, 8-foot frames
into the zippered skin of luckless human victims; in this film, we’re just
supposed to accept this transformation because, well, the script says so.
Uh-huh.
Subsequent encounters with these
beasties involve octopoid extremities and dollops of green glop that get
compared — at great, tedious length — to male human ejaculate. Such “gags,” I
hasten to stress, represent the height of this film’s humor. And when our boys
discover a powerful alien weapon — disguised as a silver bowling ball — they
naturally hare about like giddy school kids, blowing up everything from cows to
tractors. Fun times.
Oh, yes; we also have a pointless
subplot involving Evan’s failure to tell his wife, Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt),
that he’s sterile: something of a setback, since she rilly, rilly wants to have
children. Near as I can tell, this narrative hiccup exists only to amplify the
film’s many limp penis jokes, and to get DeWitt into a “take me now” outfit.
Back on the alien front, things
don’t get any better as we approach the explosive climax, although I will
acknowledge Digital Domain’s nifty special effects; the E.T.s, when finally
revealed in their hideous glory, are pretty cool.
But as for the “big reveal”
regarding which of these characters are aliens in disguise ... well, even a
5-year-old could suss out that secret.
So ... what does distinguish a
successful sci-fi/fantasy comedy from a wannabe flop? Why are Ghostbusters and Galaxy Quest so vastly superior to this dead-on-arrival turkey? Sharper
scripts, for openers, accompanied by actors who genuinely try to inhabit
characters that are more than one-note stereotypes.
And a greater attention to
detail, thank you very much. Even a made-up story needs to adhere to its own
interior logic; The Watch can’t even get that much right.
As for the so-called acting ...
don’t get me started. The performances are stiff and awkward, the line readings
an insult to junior high school theater productions. Stiller plays yet another
of his typical uptight smart-asses — a role he could phone in, at this point —
while Vaughn and Hill are no more than blustering, blathering blowhards
desperately seeking a genuinely funny line. Good luck with that; actual humor
would die of loneliness in this flick.
The London-born Ayoade, at least,
makes good use of his British accent, and does his best to turn Jamarcus into
more of an actual character than probably existed on paper. He and the
aforementioned effects elevate Schaffer’s Folly from total turkeydom to its
one-star rating.
This film achieved unwanted
notoriety earlier this year, when George Zimmerman’s Florida shooting of
Trayvon Martin turned the phrase “neighborhood watch” into an ugly joke. As it
happens, The Watch originally was (much more appropriately) titled Neighborhood Watch, which left 20th Century Fox in a bit of a pickle: What to
do? Studio execs, apparently paid big bucks to make such unimaginative
decisions, elected to shorten the title and go with The Watch.
Too bad they couldn’t have
shortened the entire film into oblivion, and spared us the possibility of
enduring it.
1 comment:
Good review Derrick. This film definitely had some funny bits here and there, but nothing all that special and it ends up being a total disappointment with a cast and crew that have all done so much better in their careers.
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