So, the 2017 summer season is starting to take shape with a handful of new trailers this past week. We got a “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2” trailer which looked excellent. We got a first look at “The Mummy”, and a mangled-up peek at the new “Transformers” film, now we have “Baywatch”. This one stars Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron and is directed by Seth Gordon.

I’ll admit I did enjoy the television show for something to pass the time, but it was far from intriguing television. The show did bring us the slow-motion beach run, a cheesy theme some, and perfectly tanned, baby oiled bodies as far as the eye could see. Hasselhoff was certainly king, but for me at least, there wasn’t enough nostalgia for this show to really make me care about this film adaptation.

After seeing the trailer, I can already grade this film at a C- to a C, because it pretty much laid out the entire plot-line. It’s clear this will be a pure action-comedy, with Johnson trying to show both his action and comedic range, so in a sense this is basically another “Central Intelligence” for the 2017 summer. This film looks like it will follow all the genre tropes but if the performances can bring some energy, and enough of the jokes can land, there will be some mild entertainment here.

You can see exactly what this movie will deliver in the trailer and if you laughed, then you will most likely laugh throughout the film as well, but I’d be highly surprised if it delivered anything truly memorable. Efron looks like he is playing his common persona and despite his lack of range, he can be funny at times and he should fit this story-line perfectly.

Johnson should be able to carry this movie along and if he and Efron have some good chemistry, then there should be a few laughable buddy-comedy scenarios, although ones we have probably already seen before. While it looked generic it could be a fun mindless adventure, it doesn’t look like it’s trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to deliver a turn your brain off comedy, set on the beach, with a “Baywatch” title to lure people to cinemas to help pay for Johnson paycheck.

I will say the special-effects look very much on the cheesy side, now it’s hard to gauge for sure until you see the final onscreen result but there were some fire-effects in this trailer that looked like they were pulled right from a TV show. This trailer didn’t blow me away but I really wasn’t expecting it to. It will have its moments I’m sure, but it still looks to be a plug-n-play story with big names in the cast, and a familiar title for name recognition.

Release Date: May 19, 2017