Baywatch: Hit the beach!

Baywatch (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for relentless profanity, crude sexual content and graphic nudity
By Derrick Bang

Well, color me surprised.

Far from the train wreck I anticipated, Baywatch is an unexpectedly entertaining take on the popular 1989-01 television series, which became must-see TV throughout the world — in syndication — after being dumped by NBC following a single season. (And boy, I’ll bet somebody’s head rolled after that mistake.)

As Mitch (Dwayne Johnson, left) and Matt (Zac Efron) grow increasingly suspicious of
the activity on a fancy yacht, they wonder if this might have something to do with the
nefarious development scheme that threatens their beloved Emerald Bay.

Mind you, we’re not talking classic cinema here. But director Seth Gordon and his half dozen credited writers keep their tongues firmly in cheek, and the result is an engaging blend of snarky comedy, rat-a-tat repartee, improbable action, bonding melodrama and — as was the case with the TV show — the ripped abs and barely zippered pulchritude of unapologetic beefcake and cheesecake.

As guilty pleasures come, this one’s shamelessly enticing.

Credit where due, Dwayne Johnson has a lot to do with this film’s success. It’s not merely a matter of his herculean feats of brawn, which we never tire of watching; he also knows how to toss a glib one-liner. Johnson has undeniable charisma and presence, and enough acting chops to navigate this sort of material. In a word, he’s fun ... and so is this film.

Johnson stars as veteran lifeguard Mitch Buchannon, top dog of the team at Emerald Bay: a well-recognized figure admired by all, who arrives early every morning to patrol his busy stretch of beach. He’s assisted by Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera), his regimented, by-the-book second in command; and CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model), a free-spirited lifeguard who keeps the zipper low on her halter top, and has the uncanny ability to jog in slow motion (one of the film’s many running gags).

The summer season has just begun, which means it’s time for tryouts for three open spots on the Baywatch team. The hopefuls include the bookish, hyper-competent Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario); and the awkward, slightly pudgy but stubbornly determined Ronnie (Jon Bass), an Emerald Bay local taking his third stab at joining this elite squad.

Much to Mitch’s displeasure, he’s also forced to consider former Olympian Matt Brody (Zac Efron), a two-time gold medalist — in solo events — who blew off his teammates in the relay event. Matt has since devolved into a law-breaking, self-indulgent bad boy who still believes the world owes him a living, despite having become a social media joke.

Mitch doesn’t want anything to do with this arrogant loser, but his micro-managing boss (Rob Huebel) insists, believing that adding Matt to the team could be a public relations gold mine.

The Choice: Choose something else

The Choice (2016) • View trailer 
1.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sensuality and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

If we’re gonna get treacle, it needs to be served better than this.

Movies based on Nicholas Sparks’ novels have become an annual nuisance, much like the return of hurricane season. His formulaic plots have grown tedious, his signature narrative gimmicks ripe for parody.

Gabby (Teresa Palmer) is happily attached to a longtime boyfriend. She doesn't even
really like her neighbor, Travis (Benjamin Walker). She nonetheless invites him over for
a romantic dinner. Can you guess what happens next?

The newest assault on our tear ducts, The Choice, offers all the same ingredients. A quaint, gorgeous setting, often coastal; check. Somebody at an emotional crossroads; check. An introductory romantic dinner in a quasi-isolated setting; check. Written messages exchanged in some droll or unusual manner; check.

And, of course, a tragedy of some sort — illness, accident, meteor strike — that Destroys Everything; double-check.

One’s willingness to buy into such sudsy melodrama depends on many factors, but we must acknowledge the necessity of a competent script and reasonably talented actors. The Choice has neither, which — coupled with the usual Sparks contrivances — makes it not only unwatchable, but hilariously awful. I’d love to see the ’bots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 take a poke at it.

Bryan Sipe’s screenplay is dreadful, his dialog the stuff of puerile TV soap operas. People simply don’t talk like this. Director Ross Katz doesn’t help matters, having no distinguishable talent that I can determine. He gets nothing but stiff and robotic performances from his stars, and a middle-school film student could improve upon the bland camera set-ups.

Most damningly, though, leading lady Teresa Palmer can’t act a lick. (Alternatively, and to maintain the shared blame, Katz can’t draw a performance out of her.) Her line readings are flat and howlingly awful, and her fallback “emotional reaction” — employed relentlessly — involves bobbing her head and flipping her hair: a dead giveaway to her (one hopes more successful) former career as a model.

Her introductory “meet cute” exchange with co-star Benjamin Walker is impressively awkward and forced. And Katz deemed it worthy of a “cut and print” command? He’s delusional.

San Andreas: No major faults here

San Andreas (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, constant mayhem and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.29.15

I had my doubts, but director Brad Peyton pulled it off: San Andreas deserves to become summer’s second surprise movie hit (following the utterly delightful Pitch Perfect 2).

The earthquakes and aftershocks are bad enough, but nobody is ready for the subsequent
tsunami. All the trouble our protagonists — from left, Ollie (Art Parkinson), Blake (Alexandra
Daddario) and Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) — have taken, to avoid tall buildings ... and now
they must try to seek higher ground.

Peyton had help, starting with a reasonably intelligent script from Carlton Cuse, Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore — which, thankfully, eschews sudsy melodrama — along with a solid cast toplined by Dwayne Johnson.

Absolutely the guy I’d want by my side, during any sort of crisis.

But this isn’t a one-man show. Peyton draws equally persuasive performances from co-stars Paul Giamatti, Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario, and (slightly) lesser players Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson comport themselves equally well.

More crucially, Peyton is to be congratulated for successfully walking the razor’s-edge fine line of tone: a very difficult task in this particular genre.

The original Airport and Poseidon Adventure may have played their crisis-laden dramas straight, when they kick-started the whole “disasterpiece” franchise four decades ago, but things had turned eye-rollingly silly by the time Rollercoaster, The Swarm and When Time Ran Out came along. Fred MacMurray and Olivia de Havilland fleeing killer bees? Puh-leaze. Rarely have so many former A-list stars been subjected to so much puerile nonsense.

But the genre’s more recent revival, with a greater reliance on computer-generated calamity, offered an entirely different set of pitfalls. With soulless filmmakers eager to showcase all the catastrophe that money could throw onto a screen, the human element became second to gleefully orchestrated death and destruction ... much as slasher films earned their rep not for how plucky heroes survived, but instead for the way helpless victims got snuffed.

This tasteless sensibility reached its nadir a few years ago with director Roland Emmerich’s 2012, which played the end of the world as a spectator sport that invited giggles, as viewers watched untold millions perish in (sometimes) deliberately amusing ways. Truly reprehensible.

Peyton & Co. wisely avoided that blunder. While the earthquake-generated events here are undeniably grim — and rather close to home for those of us living in California, particularly in the wake of the recent tragedy in Nepal — cinematographer Steve Yedlin never lingers on the untold loss of life, nor does the film pander to baser instincts. Peyton and his writers simply concentrate on telling a saga of crisis, and the resourceful individuals who overcome one setback after another.

Besides which, you’ve gotta love a story that treats engineers with such respect, and makes champions of humble Caltech undergraduates. Not to mention getting not just one, but two impressively capable female characters in the bargain.

And hey ... if the heroics eventually become improbable, that’s the nature of the game. This film earns plenty of good will before unleashing its physics-defying stunts. So yes ... we’re treated to the world’s most resilient helicopter, quickly followed by the world’s sturdiest truck, and — without question — the world’s most amazing speedboat.

Go with it.

Percy Jackson, Sea of Monsters: Mythbegotten

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: PG, for fantasy action violence
By Derrick Bang

Conventional wisdom suggests the value of a winning formula.

Movie studies, infamous for getting things bass-ackwards, sometimes cling to a losing formula.

Having successfully invaded Polyphemus' lair and snatched the fabled Golden Fleece,
our young heroes — from left, Tyson (Douglas Smith), Clarisse (Levin Rambin), Grover
(Brandon T. Jackson), Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Percy (Logan Lerman) —
discover that keeping their prize will be even more difficult.

2010’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief offered fabulous monsters, slick special effects and an A-list cast of cameo players ... and nothing else. The film was dumb, soulless and atrociously acted; the entire cast delivered every line with smirking condescension, as if mocking the material as a waste of time. Needless to say, if the actors don’t seem to believe in what they’re doing, we certainly won’t.

Critics dismissed the film with contempt, and it was justifiably loathed by fans of Rick Riordan’s teen-lit fantasy series; Craig Titley’s snarky script completely failed to respect the source novel. The biggest surprise? Chris Columbus occupied the director’s chair, and you’d certainly think that the guy who helmed the first two Harry Potter movies would understand how to bring fantasy to the big screen.

You’d think.

Despite earning only $89 million in the States — on a budget of $95, which qualifies as a failure — the results were far better worldwide, with a final tally of $226 million. Those numbers spell S-E-Q-U-E-L, despite everybody’s recognition that they were dealing with a dog.

And so now we’re graced with Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters ... which offers fabulous monsters and slick special effects, and is dumb, soulless and atrociously acted. Despite the presence of a new director (Thor Freudenthal) and scripter (Marc Guggenheim), little has changed. The young stars may be three years more mature, but their performances haven’t improved much. And it’s rather telling that the first film’s big names — Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson and Catherine Keener — opted out this time.

Indeed, we never catch the barest glimpse of the Olympian gods who played such an important role in the first film. Oh, they’re mentioned here, now and then, but that’s it. Instead of Zeus, Hades, Poseidon and Medusa, we get Hermes and Dionysus. Our favorite centaur, Chiron, now is played by Anthony Head (a fan favorite from the days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), rather than Brosnan. Although I’ve no desire to slight the talents of the esteemed Mr. Head, whose work I admire, one gets the distinct impression that these filmmakers settled for the B Team.

Freudenthal deserves credit for attempting a more serious tone; he mostly eliminated the smug atmosphere that poisoned the first film. But Guggenheim’s script takes even more liberties with the second entry in Riordan’s book series, leaving us with an “adaptation” in name only. I’m sure Riordan's fans will be equally unhappy.