“CHiPs” | World Premiere Trailer | Review

chips_vert_dom_tsr_2764x4096_masterIs there any doubt that Hollywood sets the gold standard for recycling? There green thumb is massive, as they try once again to re-brand and repackage yet another old property, for a new audience, trying to sell a routine comedy with a familiar name to make money.

“CHiPs” just dropped its first trailer. We have our first look at Michael Pena and Dax Shepard as Officer Poncherello and Baker, as well as a two-and-a-half-minute showcase of flat-out generic, and honestly lazy humor.

In this trailer, you can see where the story is going to go, you can see the tone of the laughs will come from the ball, dick and ass region with some awkward buddy humor as a side dish. Now I am not saying it cannot work. We all have “21 Jump Street” to thank for this trend of rebooting old shows with a raunch-com or juvenile tone.

It worked for that film, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill delivered some excellent chemistry and some hilarious moments and the writing was surprisingly clever at times to make for a film that delivered a ton of laughs and was a box-office success.

So, it can be done, there is a chance this film will not feel stale, and will provide some good laughs along the way of telling its routine story. But honestly, I do not have my hopes set high for this one. I am never wanting a film to fail, but this trailer was lacking some chemistry between Pena and Shepard, and went to the dumb humor a few times too many, to have me thinking this film will bring anything new to the table.

The story looks routine, two guys are put together as partners to solve a routine crime. They will have their differences and eventually become brothers, they will solve the case yada, yada, yada. Vincent D’Onofrio will be in this one as well. Most likely in the villain form of some capacity and you have a 50/50 shot of him helping make this movie better or he will simply be sleepwalking through it.

The pressure will be on Dax Shepard though, he wrote, will direct, and star in this remake so he will definitely be the quarterback of the team and will find most the eye rolls coming his way if this movie fails to make people laugh. But to their credit I have enjoyed both Pena and some of Shepard’s comedic performances, they can both be hilarious if the material is right, and I do hope this movie will be fun.