The new incarnation teams Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron as lifeguards with clashing styles in an attempt to add a layer of ridiculous, self-knowing comedy to the slow-motion running, skimpy outfits and ocean heroics. Johnson replaces David Hasselhoff in the lead role of Mitch Buchannon, who almost immediately finds that a slickly packaged baggie of a new illegal drug has washed up on the beach, and wants to find the source.
But before he can launch his investigation, Efron shows up as a new, impossibly buff and incredibly stupid guy named Matt Brody, who was a two-time Olympic champion swimmer before an embarrassing televised incident in which he vomited in a pool and kept swimming. Mitch's boss Captain Thorpe (Rob Huebel) thinks having an Olympian on the squad will be great publicity for the Baywatch team and orders Mitch to add him without the required physical tryout.
Brody's cockiness clashes with Mitch's attempts to take the job seriously, and results in a nonstop parade of pretty-boy insults from Mitch that generated only one big laugh from the audience. Meanwhile, a pudgy loser named Ronnie (Jon Bass) is added to the team due to his sheer determination, setting up a series of awkward encounters with his lust interest CJ (Kelly Rohrbach) that are embarrassing for both his character and the audience to endure.
The Baywatch gang ultimately set its sights on new local club owner Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) as their chief suspect, as bodies start to pile up. The scenes where she appears to act nefariously with her henchmen and victims feel like a live-action version of a "Scooby-Doo" villain, ensuring "Baywatch" doesn't have one second of suspense or mystery along the way.
What it does have is a constant jarring clash of tones, veering wildly between slow-motion action scenes and incredibly vulgar attempts at laughs that aren't able to be described in a Catholic/family setting. There are also at least 60 uses of the "F" word, plenty of crass sexual innuendoes and a surprisingly gruesome end for the villain. Thankfully, the audience at an early screening met the movie with silence, providing hope that there are still some standards for what audiences will find funny these days.
Meanwhile, the latest "Pirates" marks the first film in six years for that series, and a welcome return to form for Depp, whose movies have mostly bombed in the interim. The new edition opens by following Henry, the son of Captain Jack's old sidekicks Will and Elizabeth, as he attempts to free his father from the curse of the Flying Dutchman.
