Talkie Tuesday: Baywatch

"And not a single fuck was given."

Hello everyone!

So the weather here is really not that summery at all, considering all we see are clouds and the occasional sunny day, but that hasn't ever deterred me from watching sun-filled movies while I was at it. 

Which reminds me that I could probably rewatch Walking on Sunshine ... or maybe not. I have a backlog of movies as long as my arm.

In any event, for tonight's blog extravaganza I decided to go with something that I had always WANTED to watch, but never got around to doing while it was playing in cinemas, which is an absolute shame since I bet it would have looked even better on the big screen.

I mean, between the Rock's awesome muscles and Zac Efron's blue eyes, you know you have a winning combination.

I'm talking, of course, about Baywatch.

Now if you remember, Baywatch was a television show way back when that launched stars like Pamela Anderson into the stratosphere, and pretty much everyone who's anyone will remember the scenes with those tight red bathing suits and the slow-motion running.

I mean, come on. You KNOW you remember the slow-mo.

So it was only a matter of time before someone decided to do a remake of some sort, and when I heard that Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron were front-lining it, I wanted to sign up.

Because, SERIOUSLY.

Is there anything funnier than Efron getting called High School Musical?!

The movie, rather characteristically, begins with a spectacular save from the one and only Dwayne Johnson, who portrays Mitch Buchannon (who you may remember as finding his way to fame through the immortal acting of David Hasselhoff) and can pretty much do everything, knows everybody, and everybody knows him.

Of course, not everybody LOVES him, but that's a different story.

See, Mitch, along with his second-in-command Holden and veteran lifeguard CJ, are some of the elite life guards protecting Emerald Bay, Florida, so when flakka drug washes up ashore, Mitch is pretty sure trouble's a-brewing.

Especially since there's a new owner of an elite beach club, Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra), who might look all sexy and friendly, but she's actually bribing city officials to have a bigger stake in the bay itself.

But before we can get into the meat of the story, we have to go through tryouts for prospective life guards, out of the lot of which only three make it to probation period: an old friend of Holden's, Summer (Alexandra Daddario, natch), a computer geek with a bit of a chubby side Ronnie who has this SERIOUS crush on CJ, and Matt Brody (Efron), a washed-out Olympic gold medalist who doesn't know what to do with his life and needs this lifeguard stint as his probation period after ... trouble.

Anyway, Mitch and Matt do NOT hit it off, and Matt doesn't have much luck in a couple of rescues he participates in, plus he has issues with listening to orders and generally just listening to people.

Mitch would have kicked him off the team too if not for the fact that Matt genuinely WANTS to change after a little drunken stint at Victoria Leeds' party where Mitch scares him into the pool (no joke, it's what happened). So boss man decides to give the kid another shot (and he calls him a bunch of pop boy band names in the process) as he, Matt and Summer head to the morgue to try and figure out why a councilman's dead.

Side-note, this probably has to be my favourite scene ever. Morgue scene, naked body, touching naked body, enough said.

See what happened is that Victoria had the councilman killed for not getting things done the way she wanted them to, but Baywatch is hot on her trail and a chase on a hot pink Vespa occurs.

I'm really not joking.

Unfortunately, while the trio do manage to figure out the councilman didn't die the way everyone says he died and that the council is covering it up for some reason, their captain is annoyed because Baywatch doesn't really have jurisdiction for solving crimes (and also he's being bribed by Leeds, too), so he fires Mitch and puts Brody in his place.

This of course doesn't endear Brody to anybody, but while Mitch is getting advice from David Hasselhoff in a store, Brody manages to swipe documents for a second victim that washed ashore because of a supposed shark attack.

He and Summer figure out it wasn't actually a shark and that someone's dropping bodies all over the place, so Matt gathers the Baywatch team and they decide to go get Leeds, who they're sure is responsible for everything since Ronnie confirms the second body is a friend of his who was working for her.

Things obviously don't go according to plan as Leeds is hot on the way to escape AND to own the entire Emerald Bay, which she plans to make private as opposed to open to the general public, and manages to toss Brody into the ocean in a cage, but luckily for him he gets rescued by Mitch and they head after the bad lady (did I mention Brody halucinates Mitch is Summer giving him mouth-to-mouth? That happens).

Meanwhile, Ronnie and CJ makeout and figure out how to start the fireworks to prevent a helicopter from landing, which gives Mitch enough time to literally blow Leeds with a fireworks rocket.

How tacky.

Afterwards, with the corrupt captain of Baywatch also arrested and the police officer who kept being a pain in the ass apologising, Mitch is reinstated and the three on probation become full-time lifeguards. Summer and Matt kiss, Ronnie and CJ also have a thing going, and Mitch introduces the new Emerald Bay captain, fresh off a plane from Hawaii, one Casey Jean Parker (Anderson).

In extra, EXTRA slow-mo.

If you want a movie you'll laugh, shriek and giggle your way through, this is the one. However, if you're looking for a prim and proper representation of how people get saved after getting themselves in trouble in the water, don't watch this. There's swear words every second word, a lot of exclamation points, nudity, short skirts and cleavages, but dang I enjoyed every second of it.

Cameos by original Baywatch stars also made my night.

And I mean, sometimes you don't need a movie with life-heavy themes.

Sometimes, all you need is a movie to laugh through and forget about life.

In which case, Baywatch delivers (in slow-mo, of course).

xx

*images and video not mine