Crapshoot 2018: Potholes on Jump Street

No Hollywood. CHIP only happens when you allow it to.

6 years ago, “21 Jump Street” landed in theaters and completely floored audiences with how funny it was in the face of evidence to the contrary in marketing along with the general rule of thumb of film adaptations of television shows carrying a generally poor track record of quality.

Unfortunately, as is the case in Hollywood, all good things must come crashing down to a poor end. The clever, metatextual commentary and self awareness of the film and its sequel have been lost in the process of cloning and mass market application to other less effective source materials.

While one of these may be better than the other, don’t let that distract you from the fact that the only real difference between these 2 movies is that one of them sucks and the other blows.

The bigger tragedy of “Baywatch” isn’t so much that it’s god awful or that it’s outright lazy (make no mistake, it is most definitely both of those things), but rather that it somehow drops the ball unrecoverably with a premise that basically wrote itself. You really don’t have to be a comedic genius to make an improved pass at this screenplay over the course of a weekend.

“Baywatch” the television show is infamous for being able to stretch the jurisdiction of its lifeguards into being a full on wing of law enforcement just to have a reason for hot swimsuit models to jump into action. The absurdity of lifeguards carrying out criminal investigation without even thinking twice about getting the authorities involved should have been the entire joke of the movie.

To its credit, there are several scenes here and there where this level of brilliance rears its head with legitimately funny results.

The only genuine laughs that “Baywatch” really instills come from watching these comically stiff lifeguard action heroes try to passionately justify their illegal interventions into criminal investigations to the actual cops as being in “lifeguard” pursuit. The police are unamused and increasingly baffled.

Sadly, their willingness to question The Rock’s unwavering charisma and conviction isn’t extended to the actual screenplay or direction of the movie itself. His caricature of Mitch Buchannon, played famously by David Hasselhoff, would be a tool of comedic perfection if his unhealthy lionization of the idea of Baywatch was played for ridicule as opposed to a genuine quirky inspiration to rally behind.

Zac Efron appears at first to be the straight man coming in to free the life guards from their leader’s cult of personality but sadly, he begins to fall in line to and at that point, the remainder of the 2 hour feature that unfolds just sort of painfully spins its wheels.

“Baywatch” isn’t a parody of a television show. It’s a mediocre action movie punctuated by terrible music and smatterings of bad comedy with no sense of flow.

That alone makes it an infuriating watch but that extra step beyond awful really rears its head when you know how easy it would have been to actually make a decent parody out of this garbage. It’s just a criminal waste of material.

On the other side of the coin, you have a bad movie that was probably never going to be anything but because its unoriginal idea didn’t carry a lot of potential to begin with.

“Baywatch” may have been a top to bottom failure in execution but at least the show that it was pulling from was that nice little balance of dated and iconic to have at least been capable of producing solid material. To say that nobody was asking for a movie based on “CHiPS” may be a generalization but is there really anybody out there that can whole heartedly say that they were looking forward to such a movie with sincere excitement based on a love of the source material.

“CHiPS” may be dated but it’s far from silly or stupid enough to lend itself well to any form of parody and isn’t the least bit iconic enough to have some form of legitimate name brand recognition and that works both in and against its favor.

The result of having no real plan or focus to the film’s comedic element is that the movie unfolds as a motorcycle themed uninspired and cliché cop movie starring Dax Shepard and Michael Peña. The technical aspects of the film, which include some of the most laughable uses of stunt doubles I’ve ever seen in recent history and music so lazy and stock I swear I’ve heard it in “Crapshoot” entries of previous years, are pitiful and the comedy is probably far more cringe worthy than anything coming out of “Baywatch.” Let’s just say I was unpleasantly surprised to discover “Fifty Shades Darker” didn’t include the least sexy thing I’ve seen all year.

All that puts it to be a substantial step up from “Baywatch,” as low a bar that may be, other than having almost no potential to burn on paper, is that the movie is short and based around vehicle chases so it’s hard for boredom to kick in particularly powerfully because by the time you’ve hit the limit of what you can take, it’s over and it kept things moving.

Additionally, there are small sparks of talent that trickle through a suffocating production in the form of solid performances. Peña and Shepard drown without passable material and a lack of direction but every once and a while, their charisma shines through in a scene that makes them feel like real characters however briefly that may last and fleeting it may come.

And of course, Vincent D'Onofrio is a treasure no matter what he appears in. Why he dolled it all out for a three dimensional and sympathetic villain in “CHiPS” of all movies, I have no idea but thank god he showed up to work and made an increasingly excruciating exercise slightly more tolerable.

While “ChiPS” is almost every bit as bad as the reputation that precedes it, you just can’t help but feel like everybody involved new they were there to just take the check. It’s not an excuse but at least the waste of time that resulted from it passes through almost apathetically as opposed to the floundering “Baywatch” that had every opportunity to save itself and arrogantly refused.

Now can we let the trend of “comedically rebooting” bad decades old television fall to its final resting place? Even Phil Lord and Chris Miller were smart enough to let “Jump Street” die after miraculously pulling it off twice.

Crapshoot will begin its final wind down next week with a look at movies that have the mere audacity to exist in defiance of any sort of reservation.