For some reason Matthew McConaughey has had two back-to-back movies where he loves fishing.
A rebellious stoner named Moondog lives life by his own rules
So here we are, it’s April of 2019 and one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Matthew McConaughey has starred in not one but two experimental films. He sure knows how to pick em these days, because both films have been simply not my cup of tea. Here we have The Beach Bum, an incoherent, psychedelic trip, that at times feels pretty meaningless. When I say this wasn’t my cup of tea, it’s because, I don’t think this was a terrible movie, in fact, it’s a beautifully shot film. The landscapes and cinematography throughout it are stunning and much like Spring Breakers, it’s pretty gorgeous to look at. Director Harmony Korine has a certain style in his films, and either it’s going to be for you, or you will honestly end up hating it. I found myself lying somewhere in the middle.
Let’s wind the clocks all the way back to the classic that is Dazed & Confused. Remember Wooderson, the iconic character that dear old Matthew plays. Well within the first few minutes of this, I said to myself, this is who Wooderson would have been all grown up. This is just a classic McConaughey performance. No one else could have played this role, I feel like this part was written for him. So Moondog as they call him was once this great poet and now, well he’s the definition of a burn out. A genius one at that, but all Moondog does is drink, do drugs and have sex. I can’t really explain Moondog, he’s just someone you need to experience for yourself. It’s a one of a kind type of role, where you can get immersed into this character, but at the same time he can get on your nerves quickly. He surrounds himself with quite the band of misfits as well. We got Snoop Dogg, well pretty much being Snoop. Isla Fisher as his horny as all hell wife. I’ll say that I actually thought they played so well off one another and whenever they were on screen together, I think that was the most enjoyable part of the movie for me. Sprinkle in a little Zac Efron, Martin Lawrence and Jonah Hill, yes Jonah Hill is in The Beach Bum. Doing perhaps one of the most accents I’ve ever heard. I know he must be doing on purpose, but it’s so bad and over the top, that it takes you out of it, every time he opens his mouth.
The cast is just a bunch of misfit characters, Zac Efron has panini sideburns, Martin Lawrence loves Dolphins and sails a boat for tourists. It’s all very weird and I know that’s Harmony’s style. I felt after watching this movie that none of the people in this movie had a soul. No one knew the difference between right and wrong. It was odd. Essentially something tragic happens to Moondog and he needs to write his novel in order to regain his life. Nothing really happens, it’s one scene after another of Moondog stumbling around, laughing, drinking, that’s really about it. I was so confused because I thought there would be more to this thing than that. You’ll laugh a lot, there’s a sequence that involved a bunch of homeless dudes and Moondog which cracked me up. There’s also a parrot that is addicted to cocaine, I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence out, but here we are.
There’s just so little to The Beach Bum, is just something you need to go see for yourself. There’s not enough to talk about because I’ll just spoil the whole thing for you. If you like McConaughey go see it. If you’re a fan of the director this will be right up your alley. But there’s just so little meat on these bones it’s hard to digest. Just set a record for my shortest review.
Nate’s Movie Tour Reviews – The Beach Bum = 62/100
Not even The Rock or slow motion boobs, could save this heaping pile of hot garbage. What this movie needs, is a life jacket…
(PARAMOUNT)Remember back in 2014, when 22 Jump Street hit theatres? Remember the running joke throughout the movie, where they insisted “to just do the exact same thing as last time?” Going into Seth Gordon’s Baywatch, I honestly thought it would be, The Rock + some boobs + the beach, and hopefully a 21/22 Jump Street vibe. Well we got Dwayne Johnson, that much is for certain, but everything else, not so much. I can’t begin to describe the utter mess this movie was. My god, just DO THE SAME THING JUMP STREET DID! Before I go on a tirade, I will say this, I’ll give the actors in this movie a lot of credit, they did what they could with the material they were given. It seems like they really had a lot of fun making Baywatch and seem to come together as a cast. The chemistry is terrific between these people, especially Dwayne and Zac Efron, but that really is the only good takeaway I had. It feels like Dwayne Johnson really mailed this one in folks, it’s a shame, because he still remains the most likeable movie star and person on planet Earth.
Our story is pretty simple, Baywatch is a sinking ship, getting no money from the city and people are finding it harder to trust them to do their job properly. Leader of Baywatch, Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson) thinks that the city not only needs the watch, but they are doing a great job. When the head of Baywatch thinks they need a promotional boost and need to spice things up, he brings in outsider and two time Olympic Gold medal winner Matt Brody (Zac Efron). Joining Buchannon on his team, is CJ (Kelly Rohrbach 🚀🚀🚀) and Stephanie (Ilfenesh Hadera). It’s summer time and that means they are looking for new recruits, when Brody joins the team so does two new comers, Summer (Alexandra Daddario 🚀🚀🚀) and Ronnie (Jon Bass). Like I said above, this movies problem is not the cast, in fact I thought they all had such terriffic chemistry and worked really well together. It was pretty obvious from the very get-go, that Ronnie’s character was written and suppose to be Josh Gad. Jon Bass was okay, but that’s what I was thinking the entire time the movie went on, maybe he had a scheduling conflict, or read the script and bailed. When the team discovers that drugs are being smuggled into the city, they suspect it’s the head of the country club, Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra). Brody thinks that this is a job for the police and refuses to help at first, thinking that being apart of Baywatch is just making sure people put on sunscreen and saving people from ocassionally drowning. Honestly not a whole lot happens throughout the movie, considering it almost clocks in at 2 hours, just a lot of filler. Mitch wants Brody to be a team player, and believe that being part of Baywatch is more than being a lifeguard.
I understand this movie is based off the 90’s TV show, which was cheesy and kind of silly all on its own, so they needed a little revamp for the movie. Making it a raunchy rated R comedy really didn’t do it any favours. I was sitting in a decently crowded theatre and well no one was laughing…….Maybe here or there, but every joke was falling flat. Not good, considering this is a comedy. I’m all for a great dick joke, in fact I enjoy a good dick joke, but my god, I think 45 percent of the jokes in this movie were dick jokes. There’s even a real human dick in this movie. That’s never a good thing, especially when they are just limp, and not hitting. (dick joke!) Going in, I thought this was going to be a really funny movie, Dwayne Johnson can be really funny, but it just seemed like he mailed this one in big time. Actually I know he did, because there’s a 20 minute stretch where he’s just not in the movie. His heart just wasn’t in this one I don’t think, I know he’s a busy guy, but being gone for the majority of the third act is just never a good sign. I will say this about the movie, remember in Batman & Robin when all Arnold Schwarzenegger did was speak in ice puns? Well Dwayne Johnson really only speaks in ocean puns in this. I swear to god, he even blurts out “I’m oceanic mother fucker!” towards the end! What is that nonsense!? That’s all I could think of, was Mr. Freeze and how on Earth he agreed to this script. Still with all that being said, you loved his character, you were rooting for Mitch the entire movie, because it just goes to show, that people will literally watch anything with Dwayne Johnson in it. Here’s another thing, we had two cameos from the TV show, David Hasselhoof and Pamela Anderson, who actually doesn’t speak a word of dialogue which I found amussing. Here’s the kicker, so Hasselhoff is known as “the mentor” but his name is Mitch Buchannon, Dwayne Johnson’s name is Mitch Buchannon, and this movie takes place in the same universe as the television show. How is that possible? There’s just no way they have the same name, these are the little things that pissed me off while I watched the movie. There’s a little scene at the end, where Hoff asks if he will be in the sequel, sorry but there isn’t going to be any sequel my man (this movie bombed).
So I knew this movie was going to be hot garbage almost immediately. The movie opens and we see Mitch running to go save someone, and when he pops out of the water with the person in his arms, BAYWATCH rises from the water and we also see dolphins dancing and doing flips in the background. It was so fake and cheesy that it just set the tone of the movie. That and the first lines of dialogue spoken need “subtitles” because they are like speaking in surfer. Baywatch tries hard to be cool, and it makes it less cool, they were one strapping it the entire time and we all know, it’s now cool to two strap it. Also, the effects and CGI in this are laughable, there’s a scene where a boat is on fire, and it’s the fakest looking fire I’ve ever seen. Like spend some money on these sorts of things, it makes the movie look even worse. That and they green-screened parts of the movie, where literally they are just on a boat in the water. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! You couldn’t even be on a boat, in the actual water? It’s a joke, like it has to be a joke, right? Things like this don’t usually bother me, but the amount of edits that were happening in certain scenes, was incredible. I don’t usually notice this, because well I mostly watch good movies, but it was sticking out like a sore thumb, just overall terrible film making. Sometimes I can never understand how these things get made, I know, it’s got the worlds biggest movie star, but a little more effort would be appreciated. Oh, and they totally waste a perfectly good funny human being; Hannibal Buress. He doesn’t have anything funny to say, and he’s barley in it. He’s one of the funniest guys around right now and you completely wasted him, the movie needed more Hannibal. Speaking of being wasted, the talented Alexandra Daddario is pretty much in this movie to stand around and give reaction shots and facial expressions. They don’t give her anything to do, or funny to say, she’s just there. Kind of disappointing if you ask me, because she deserves better. One tiny bright spot, Yahya Abdul-Manteen who’s playing Black Manta (one of the coolest villains ever) in Aquaman was really funny in this. So that gave me even more hope for Aquaman and I think he’s going to rock it in that role!
Overall Baywatch is just a mess. It has some of the worst writing for a summer blockbuster in a long time. This honestly felt like a Michael Bay movie, and I happen to think he can put out some good movies. The whole movie was just so predictable and I can’t even really remember one memorable moment, that didn’t invoke some sort of dick joke. They really messed this up, because with a great cast, this had success written all over it. Now I don’t see another coming, unless they really make good money overseas, but I highly doubt that. I wanna see Zac Efron in more things, he’s actually really funny and always finds a way to have great chemistry with his co-stars. I just hope this isn’t a sign of things to come with other properties Dwayne Johnson is rebooting, like Jumanji and Rampage. This summer movie season has kind of been a bummer so far, it’s making me sad. The only positive that comes from this, Zac has motivated me to get a real nice summer bod, so thanks for that Zac.
