Baywatch is one of the most watched and most successful TV shows of all time, with an impressive run of more than a decade. It made stars of its cast (David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra to name but a few) and of course, immortalized the now infamous slow-motion beach run.
News of a big screen remake was met with some disdain initially - if it ain't broke, don't fix it - but with Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron in the lead roles, director Seth Gordon has turned Baywatch into a playful pastiche on the original, with an added R-rating to boot. Early trailers have looked promising for this movie, and now a new Baywatch trailer has arrived online and can be viewed, above.
News of the R- rating for “language throughout, crude sexual content, and graphic nudity," came as a surprise; though Johnson had previously teased a more raunchy take on the original TV series, few imagined that graphic nudity would be playing a part. None of that is on display in the PG rated trailer above (some bad language aside) obviously, but it does leave the door open for another red band trailer to drop at some point.
Alongside Johnson and Efron, Baywatch co-stars Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, and Priyanka Chopra. Johnson takes on the role of Mitch Buchannon, originally played by Hasselhoff, who will also appear in the movie in a cameo role. The action picks up when Efron's character, Matt Brody, arrives in town as the newest lifeguard on the beach. Ostensibly, the plot of the movie follows Brody uncovering a criminal scheme that threatens the beach, but let's be real here; Baywatch has never been about the narrative.
This newest trailer replays a lot of the footage we've seen before, but also delivers some new gags and a look at the plotline, too. Efron is right; the small matter of a murder on the beach is something for the police to deal with, but at the same time, it's easy to see that no-one on Baywatch is going to let the case drop. Okay, so Baywatch is not going to be the most profound movie ever made, but the gags come thick and fast, as does some pretty impressive action sequences. Efron and Johnson both look very at home in their roles, and it's easy to see why their careers are going from strength to strength. Efron seems to have succeeded in carving out a name for himself as a decent comedy actor after his years as a Disney heartthrob.
With this particular version of Baywatch, the emphasis is on Efron's abs, naturally, but also the gags, which come thick and fast and are actually very funny. Time has moved on since Baywatch was last on our screens, and while it's great to look back with a healthy dose of nostalgia and fondness, Baywatch has decided to rule out any attempt to recapture the essence of the original. This new Baywatch is a movie that's not going to take itself seriously at all, and for that reason, it could well prove to be a hit.
Source: Paramount Pictures
