I found it hard to figure out what this movie is really all about. Was it a travel log about what it is like to drive through France on your way to Paris, stopping at very old museums and eating at very expensive French restaurants, or was it a story about infidelity and a marriage that is not going that well? After the movie was over, I thought this movie was about both of these things.
This film stars Diane Lane as Anne, who is a woman traveling through Europe with her movie producing husband played by Alec Baldwin and it is obvious from the beginning that her husband is much more interested in the problems he is having with producing a film and constant phone calls than his wife. Due to high altitude and inner ear pain, Anne decides to drive to Paris France rather than fly with her husband and her driver is a friend of her husband, Jacques played by French actor Arnaud Viard who is very clearly attracted to Anne. From this point, this movie is nothing more than conversation and very subtle flirting between the Anne and Jacques as they drive through France and take several diversions along the way. This film probably has the least story of any movie I have seen in a long time. The acting is good throughout, but it is hard to fully recommend a movie that has so little going on. I thought it was nice to see parts of France that very few of us will probably ever see, so this is a good movie for anyone who has had the desire to visit France. The end of this movie was very strange, with a shot of Diane Lane looking directly into the camera enjoying some chocolate covered roses. I have not seen an actor looking directly into a camera like that since the release of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 31 years ago. Why the director decided to put that at the end of this movie, I thought was completely out of place.
As far as recommending this film, I do recommend it as a travel log about the countryside of France, but I do not recommend it as a movie because the story was not strong enough to keep your attention for the entire 2 hours.
The one thing I will give this film is that unlike the previous one, and most of the ones before that, at least there is a followable story here or a sequence of events and scenes that make sense and connect to the previous scenes. The mystery for this movie series for me still remains, why are these movies so popular? Is it only because people believe that Johnny Depp is so good at playing a drunken Pirate? This part of Captain Jack Sparrow has given Depp by far the most money of his career but for me, the whole drunken Pirate bit got boring after the second installment in this franchise.
The story for this newest Pirates movie is about the same as the other ones. There are evil ghost Pirates trying to find and kill Sparrow. There are other criminal Pirates who are fighting each other on the ocean, there is always some kind of treasure everyone is looking for and in this movie, the treasure is something that will remove all curses in the world. This movie actually has dead ghost sharks that try and attack Sparrow and others. All of this involves some good special effects but for me nothing that is entertaining enough to recommend. This movie, like all of the others, will once again make a great deal of money and once again, I will find it a mystery that so many people like these movies.
Just about everybody who has seen the trailers or even the TV show Baywatch from the 80’s would expect to see a bad or stupid movie even before it starts. For these people, you would not be disappointed. Aspiring screen writers like myself will probably have a different viewpoint of a movie this ridiculous and wonder how an idea and screenplay this bad could ever have been greenlighted in the first place, most especially considering the long odds of any screenplay being made into a movie. While watching this stupid film I was thinking about a conference room in Hollywood somewhere, probably two or more years ago when the final meeting for funding and planning this film happened. I think it probably went something like this:
Producer: We have selected you, based on similar previous work to direct Baywatch for us.
Director: Baywatch? You mean that bad TV show from the 80’s?
Producer: It was both stupid and bad, but also the most popular TV show of all time.
Director: It was?
Producer: Yes, it was.
Director: Your kidding.
Producer Number one money maker.
Director: Wow, I had no idea.
Producer: Name recognition. People remember this stupid show and all the women on the beach. Hasselhoff embarrassing himself every week. They will flock to this.
Director: Really?
Producer: Of course. There are plans for a Chips movie too, same reasons.
Director: Another bad TV show.
Producer: It doesn’t matter, its all about making money and name recognition. People remember that idiotic show and those 2 guys on bikes.
Director: If you say so. But for Baywatch, how can you make a two-hour movie about lifeguards running on a beach and saving some people who might drown?
Producer: Easy, you make them solve crimes!
Director: What?
Producer: Yes, they solve crimes, break up a drug ring, that will make it interesting and kill two hours!
Director: But they are not police officers. They are not allowed to solve crimes.
Producer: It doesn’t matter, it’s a stupid movie. Nobody cares about anything making sense and we have to kill two hours. We have about 45 minutes of material for the beach. That gets too boring very fast. We need a hook! And that is solving crimes and chasing after crooks with lifeguards!
Director: This whole idea is just too stupid.
Producer: It’s about money, not quality.
Director: No kidding.
Producer: Interested?
Director: Of course not, the entire idea is too stupid and ridiculous. Lifeguards
solving crimes? I have a reputation.
Producer: We will pay you double what we paid you last time.
Director: I’m in.
Producer: That was fast. See, its all about the money.
Director: One question.
Producer: What?
Director: Are you planning any cameos from the TV show?
Producer: Of course, Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff have already signed.
Director: Sounds like a hit.
Producer: Name recognition is what makes money. Just ask the Kardashians.
Director: One last question?
Producer: What?
Director: Do I have to use my real name on the credits?
Meetings like this are how bad and stupid movies are made. Most recently the movie Chips was released about a very bad TV show from the 70s and the movie was worse than the TV show. Chips grossed only 18 million so hopefully after this movie also bombs we will not see any new bad TV shows made into bad movies anytime in the near future. The reviews for Baywatch (Rottentomatoes 18%) and the box office are very bad so far, so we can all only hope that this is the last of the bad TV shows becoming bad movies, at least for a while.
This movie stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron and one has to wonder of Efron will ever make a good movie in his entire career or suffer a career nosedive at any point after making so many bad films.
This film is very bad for many reasons. First of all, the TV show was ridiculous and the idea of creating a story about lifeguards solving crimes involving dirty politics and drug trafficking is absurd. What were they all thinking? If your going to make Baywatch into a movie the least any audience should expect is a little common sense. The actress Priyanka Chopra also stars in this movie as an evil drug crime boss. The entire storyline involving her character is also ridiculous. There is a scene in this movie where the lifeguards not only act as police officers in a morgue but also as forensic scientists, leading to a disgusting moment where 3 of them are hiding in the sliding containers for dead bodies and then some horrible liquid drops onto Efron’s face. Did the producers of this mess decide that something like this is funny or just disgusting or both?
It is very hard to understand or even justify the thinking at any point in this entire film because the decision making is so unbelievably stupid. All attempts at comedy also failed and nobody laughed in the theater I was in.
Run from this embarrassing mess of a movie and hope that the people involved never make a sequel.
