BAYWATCH (2017)

I am STILL laughing! I love a good joke, and this entire movie is one very long, very clever, and very effective joke on all those adolescent males who viewed the original 90's TV series it was based on. Now, the movie was also fast-paced, fun, well-acted, with quirky characters and some downright hilarious dialogue. I would have ranked it in the Good Movies column regardless - but after it was done, the more I thought about it, the more the big joke came through, and the harder I chuckled at it, and I'm STILL grinning an hour later!

What's the joke? you ask. It's delicious, and it can be summed up in one (SPOILER) of a sentence. So here it is . . .

THERE IS ZERO FEMALE NUDITY IN BAYWATCH.

Why is that a big deal? Well, think about it. You have an entire series that ran on TV for YEARS, whose main characters were a mostly female crew of lifeguards in tight-fitting red bathing suits, with Pamela Anderson heading the cast. Every straight man in America wondered what was under those swimsuits! So now, some 15-20 years after the original series is condemned to syndication afterlife, a brand new BAYWATCH movie is released, with an all new cast of rock-hard guys (one played by The Rock himself!) and gorgeous women. AND THE MOVIE IS RATED "R"! All across America, sighs of anticipation went up as thousands of males had the same thought at the same time: FINALLY we get to see what's packed in those skimpy red bathing suits! And sure enough, the movie did earn its R rating. There are a few F-bombs, there's lots of innuendo and suggestive dialogue, and enough cleavage to go white-water rafting in - but then you get to the end of the movie and realize that the "Graphic Nudity" in the content advisory consisted of A. a fat nerdy guy's buttocks, and B. a dead man's penis. Yes, one butt and one Johnson. and it's not even Dwain Johnson's Johnson! And that's it! I can hear the cast and screenwriters laughing in my head as they see tens of thousands of frustrated fans of the series slouching out of the theater grumbling.

Plot? Oh, yeah, there was something about this gorgeous, wicked night club owner smuggling drugs into the bay which is guarded by "The Rock" Johnson and trying to buy up all the real estate. The intrepid crew of life guards are dead-set on stopping this evil plot, despite the fact that the entire city council is in the drug queen's oh-so-tight hip pocket. Honestly, who cares about the plot? There's lots of hilarious one-liners, hot girls running down the beach in slow motion, gunfire, mayhem, dramatic rescues, and silly undercover operations.

In this movie's case, the answer to the famous question posed by Decimus Meridius Maximus - "Are you not entertained?" - is "HECK YEAH I was entertained!!" And I'm still laughing at the cruel joke the movie's creators played on a generation of horny fans of the TV show.

Well played, guys, well played! 5/5