Dwayne Johnson can’t save Baywatch from drowning with 30 minutes left

REVIEW: Despite the buff bodies of the boys and babes — and the best efforts of Dwayne Johnson — Baywatch is another dud TV comedy remake.

BAYWATCH (MA15+)

Director: Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses)

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandria Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Priyanka Chopra.

Rating: two stars

Verdict: Lie down with togs, and you’ll get up with sleaze

WHENEVER Hollywood is hunting a quick buck, modern comedy remakes of old TV shows have always been an easy kill.

However, as audiences recently learned the hard way with CHIPs, some of these slapdash efforts are becoming increasingly difficult to watch.

While Baywatch ain’t all bad — it stars the unfeasibly likeable Dwayne Johnson, for cryin’ out loud — there isn’t enough good stuff to fill a two-hour movie.

(A majority of comedies never need to stick around until the 90-minute mark. Any that goes above 100 better have a good reason for doing so.)

Despite Dwayne Johnson’s best efforts the film remake of the TV series Baywatch becomes increasingly difficult to watch. Picture: Frank Masi

Johnson stars as Mitch, the spearhead of a squad of lightweight Californian lifeguards at loggerheads with a heavyweight crime boss whose operations are crossing their patch of sand.

The filmmakers seem very unsure as to where the jokes are hidden inside this sketchy premise, and only Johnson looks like he might have a clue.

A pity he didn’t share this intel before taking an extended breather from Baywatch just after the halfway point. The movie totally ups and dies in his absence.

Meanwhile, his main male co-star, Zac Efron, looks like he thinks he is still on the set of Dirty Grandpa.

An extended sequence in which Efron (playing an ex-Olympic swimmer formerly known as ‘The Vomit Comet’) finds himself working blue in a morgue (with a malfunctioning corpse) might be the exact point when Baywatch’s laughs go missing for good.

Zac Efron looks great as Matt Brody and has one great funny scene. Picture: Frank Masi

It is depressing to think this is the work of six credited writers. Particularly when they had their pick of 11 full seasons of the original TV show to pilfer for parody and plot twists.

All they’ve thrown on to the screen is a leery, lumpy mixed bag of buff blokes in board shorts and budgie smugglers. Plus some beautiful babes pressure-packed into revealing red one-pieces.

The gorgeous lifeguards include lfenesh Hadera as Stephanie Holden, Kelly Rohrbach as CJ Parker and Alexandra Daddario as Summer. Picture: Frank Masi

A magnanimous gesture by the costume department leaves just enough breathing room in the ladies’ outfits for the famous Baywatch go-to move: the slow-mo jiggle-jog along the beach.

Obligatory cameos from former series regulars are fizzers, like such nostalgic nods to the past invariably are.

More than any other decade, what somehow became big in the 1990s, should stay in the 1990s.

Originally published as Dwayne Johnson can’t save Baywatch from drowning with 30 minutes left