Based on a TV show only really remembered because of Pamela Anderson showing up in a swimsuit as well as David Hasselhoff being a key part of modern movies like The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2, Baywatch chronicles the life and times of a lifeguard named Mitch (Dwayne Johnson), a guy whose revered as a God among men, which is basically where his personality ends. That's the first of the many narrative sins Baywatch commits, making its lead character not all that interesting as an individual and not even all that funny. Mitch is an obvious stand-in for Dwayne Johnson, a charismatic dude beloved by millions who lives and breathes the ocean.
Now, Dwayne Johnson is a charming guy for sure, but in Baywatch, it feels like the guy isn't even playing himself, it feels like he's sleepwalking through a thinly written caricature of his media demeanor. Real shame there since he's actually pretty adept at immersing himself in comedic characters different from himself (some sketches on Saturday Night Live and last year's Central Intelligence provide sublime proof of this) which makes his tired performance here all the more tragic. Anywho, Mitch is looking for new lifeguards to work on his beach, one of whom is disgraced Olympic gold medal winner Matt Brody (Zac Efron).
Matt Brody as a character is also a massive problem for Baywatch as he's just so unlikable for lack of a better word. I don't know why the movie thinks Brody is at all someone the audience will want to watch get redeemed or learn lessons since he's so thoroughly selfish that you want Dwayne Johnson to punch him right out of the movie instead of taking him under his wing. Our two leads, one a thinly sketched burlesque of an actual actors personality and the other incredibly repellent, soon lead the other lifeguards (one of whom is a more normal looking dude with the voice of Josh Gad and the other three interchangeable women with nothing to do) in a quest to nailing an ambitious drug-dealing evildoer played by Priyanka Chopra.
That quest is an extremely boring one to watch, since all of the villains of the piece are revealed early on so there's no guessing game as to whose behind the nefarious shenanigans on the beach while the antagonists themselves are also incredibly uninteresting. All the while, Baywatch treats Mitch's hunt to reclaim his beach from wicked villains with a bizarre amount of sincere pathos, including a mscene where the main team of lifeguards loses Mitch that the film has to strain so hard to make happen. It's as if amidst all of the tired gay panic jokes (the big gag of the climax is that Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron kiss! Oh man, men kissing is so groooooosss and therefore funny, hahahahahahahaha!!!) the film also wants to act like it has a heart. Oh please.
Even a supporting cast that includes talented people like Hannibal Burress and Alexandra Daddario gets nothing to do and it's a particular shame that the three lady lifeguards in the movie don't even get attempts at jokes, they're just here to stand around in revealing outfits and one of them gets to be Zac Efron's forced love interest. In case you couldn't tell, Baywatch is a bad comedy, a really bad comedy in fact, but it's also one that is less of a catastrophic trainwreck and more akin to a poorly painted Thomas The Tank Engine toy crumbling to pieces. It's a shoddily made motion picture that can't even summon the barest amount of entertainment out of its flaws, it's just endless tedium and lazy filmmaking and storytelling decisions for its entire overlong running time. I don't even like the beach at all but I'd much rather spend time there than watch Baywatch.
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