3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Back in Action

2025, Seth Gordon (Baywatch) -- Netflix

OMG I think "Baywatch" is from The Dark Year, a movie we probably watched in 2018 but I never wrote about. I know we did watch it, were not impressed, and I am not going to rewatch it, in order to actually write about it. Nope, not gonna.

I am not surprised this is by the guy who did Baywatch. It is that bad, going past the "digestible" label and deep into the over-boiled, over-salted pablum stage. And probably not going to get the response it wants for Cameron Diaz's return to acting after a 10 year absence. I am not quite sure I even noticed her absence, which is no slight on her, just that other than the Shrek movies, she wasn't doing anything I was paying attention to. To make that choice, to just step away from it all, must have been difficult, as long as you ignore the golden parachute she would have. And to be fair, nothing about this movie is on her, or even on Foxx -- they are giving exactly what the movie expected of them.

And also to be fair, this is probably exactly what the movie intended on being, its just that that intent is not very ... admirable? Maybe it's Netflix. I have already commented on the Netflix-style of action-thriller, usually starring Ryan Reynolds, but maybe it's more than a Netflix way of making movies, but maybe it's understanding its viewers? These movies seem built for not-paying-attention; there are no level of details in the movie that you can lose when you are looking at your phone, grabbing a snack or using the washroom. There are movies that you pause when you get up from the sofa, and movies you don't bother, cuz you aren't going to miss anything important. And maybe if it still hits all the notes you want when you look up from your phone, its doing alright by itself?

The movie starts with a hot-opener, an intro to our super spies, Matt (Jamie Foxx, White House Down) and Emily (Cameron Diaz, Knight and Day), wading into a villain's lair to steal a MacGuffin. They are supposed to be all subtle sly secretive, but they fail at that, and punch shoot and kick their way out, to rendezvous with British agent Baron (Andrew Scott, Ripley), who has a thing for Emily. He puts them on a plane to bring the MacGuffin to London, but in-flight they are attacked -- the British agents on the plane were killed and replaced. We assume Baron betrayed them. They punch and shoot and kick and blow the plane up, parachute out, apparently losing the MacGuffin. Also, Emily has confessed she is pregnant, and Matt is willing to whatever she wants. On the ground they decide their current life cannot do well to raising a kid so they let everyone assume they are dead (plane blowed up, remember) and go into hiding.

Fifteen years later, they are suburban soccer moms, uncool to their kids (they now have a second) and their spy life is in the past. Unnnntil they follow their teen daughter to a night club she has bluffed her way into, and have to punch and kick and shoot the night club thugs. Insert some excuses about taking self-defense courses. Of course, this outs them, and the Bad Guys come a-gunnin' shooting up the nice suburbia place they live as they escape with the kids, who don't get any explanation beyond "surprise vacation to London, England!"

Matt has admitted that he actually kept the MacGuffin and that is what everyone still wants. And he hid it in Emily's mom's place, a mansion in the English countryside, where she is a retired MI6 legend who is estranged from Emily, for being a Bad Mom. Parallel BS between Emily and her daughter, blah blah, everyone has to work together to get the MacGuffin while also making sure Baron, now head of MI6, doesn't catch up with them. Fight fight, shoot shoot, chase chase, quip quip quip. Kabooms.

I watched this over a few days of WFH lunches and only completed it because it didn't matter. I could watch in bursts of 25 mins or so, and lose very little in the gaps. And, of course, I didn't really care if I did. Why watch it then? Yes, the excuse that I want a movie that is that level so I can watch during WFH days, but also I do admittedly like the spy-action-thriller genre, even in the Lite form. Its just that nothing is invested in this movie beyond the bare minimum. I mean a lot of money is invested in it, but nobody cares enough to make it Good. And while this has been a problem in Hollywood for as long as they have been punching out movies, I still come along hoping they will do just enough to tip it over.

They didn't.