Baywatch
I'll be honest, I had my reservations to begin with. But, ultimately, this film achieved all of its aims.
My main concern, of course, was how characters could be developed that could hold a candle Mitch and C.J. Luckily, there was no need to worry: Mitch and C.J. remained, just played by different people. This was a clever riff on how cinema can defy the corporeal reality of finitude and our concept of linear time.
Mitch today is played by Dwayne Johnson, better known by virgins as an adult man called 'The Rock'. Mitch knows the names of all the people on the beach, which might appear problematically implausible if it wasn't for the fact he also appears to be able to see out of the back of his head. Literally, he does it four times.
We know Mitch has a penis because he references the size of it early doors ("big"!) but it many ways he seems to not have a penis at all. This is mostly down to the fact he rejects the advances of the countless beautiful women who throw themselves at him throughout the film. One might suggest he is homosexual, or even asexual, but one might also surmise that this suggestion wouldn't go down well. Perhaps he is really just dedicated to his job, which he does mention in every line other than the ones in which he used ocean-related allegories to make his point. His point is always his dedication to the job.
Speaking of penises, there are several penis-related jokes throughout the film. One is during Zac Effron's early scene, where he is accused of having a 'man-gina'. This is a clever play on words, referencing a woman's genitalia (the 'vagina') and juxtaposing it with Effron's assumed gender (male) to create a delightful portmanteau that suggests his genital area is either worrying deformed or, more likely, that his value on this earth is less because he isn't a cis male.
Another penis-related joke occurs soon after, or before. Hard to tell. Anyway, an overweight Jewish individual who is attracted to C.J. happens to choke on what appears to be a non-brand variety of Cheeto just as C.J. is slowly jogging past (as she is wont to do). After she performs a version the Heimlich manoeuvre on him that looks, hilariously, as if she is sodomising him, the overweight Jewish individual's best friend, an overweight black individual, points out privately to him that he has unfortunately become erect in the penis area. Horrified, the overweight Jewish individual leaps into the air, landing on a slatted wooden deck chair and trapping his erect penis and testicles in one of the gaps. An entire six minutes are then spent on this joke as Mitch, who, thinking on it, is at the heart of most of the penis humour in this film, goes over the logistics of how to remove the overweight Jewish individual's penis from the deck chair. Hilariously, C.J. attempts to help by rubbing the overweight Jewish individual's back and pressing her cleavage into his face, completely unaware of the effect her striking beauty and near nakedness might have on a man. The overweight black friend enjoys all of this immensely and records it on his phone, as do a large group of onlookers.
I didn't watch the rest of the film but I assume it was just as good. 10/10
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