Genre: Science Fiction/Comedy/Horror
Classification: 18
Release Date: 30 August 2012
Running Time: 100 minutes
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Screenplay: Jared Stern, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Starring: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade
Plot Synopsis: Four everyday suburban guys come together as an excuse to escape their humdrum lives one night a week. But when they accidentally discover that their town has become overrun with aliens posing as ordinary suburbanites, they have no choice but to save their neighborhood -- and the world -- from total extermination.
Classification: 18
Release Date: 30 August 2012
Running Time: 100 minutes
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Screenplay: Jared Stern, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Starring: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade
Plot Synopsis: Four everyday suburban guys come together as an excuse to escape their humdrum lives one night a week. But when they accidentally discover that their town has become overrun with aliens posing as ordinary suburbanites, they have no choice but to save their neighborhood -- and the world -- from total extermination.
The recent trend in making an R-rated comedy is to include tawdry jokes about men’s willies as much as possible. That is contrary to the usual conversation starters like beautiful highland boobs and weeds’ supremacy. However, are penny jokes so necessary to have it included throughout the movie? For a continuous gag that will momentarily cracks up some laugh burst is a sure; but over-using it and awkwardly mixing it up with the kinetic sci-fi elements do not bode well here.
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| Gag #1: Do you know how to finish this movie in half-an-hour? |
The Watch sets in a small town of Glenview, where Evan Trautwig (Ben Stiller) is an active participant in the local community and the senior manager of the local Costco store. One night, the store’s night guard is gruesomely murdered by an unknown entity. With the local police showing lacks of interest in pursuing the case, Evan decides to form a Neighborhood Watch, recruiting Bob (Vince Vaughn), Franklin (Jonah Hill) and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade). Responding to more mysterious murders happening in the town, The Watch members stumble upon an alien and learn that the alien force is planning for a global-scale invasion. What will The Watch members do to stop the invasion?
Akiva Schaffer directs but the product is a less satisfying comedic performance than most of the SNL gigs he ever did. As a movie meant for dumb fun entertainment, it works but for a quality experience, it is not. The Watch is just another predictable and sluggish comedy of the summer. The alien design and appearance are still getting the same old reptilian anatomy it borrowed from The Dinosaur Project. Their brain is on the crotch but still full of the same cat agenda of infiltrating the human institutions, kills them all and nothing about the aftermath plan, though. Our summoned heroes heed to the call is nothing more than just a bunch of underdogs, armed with guns purchased online. Now if this sounds like Ghostbusters, you are probably right after all.
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| Gag #2: Well, here is how! |
With these clichés, writer Seth Rogen did nothing to include anything fresh and substantial into the plot. However, when The Watch turns on the R-rated machine guns, making full use of mouth-fouled dialogue assaults and continuously squirting penis jokes to keep things alive, it is a pure entertainment that makes my day. My guilty conscious is saying that this movie is awesome because of the harmful jokes. But in reality, this sci-fi comedy concept is a little mismatched. But then a bit of intelligent subplot about clue searching, brainstorming and improper execution would not hurt the plot so much. Oh, but those will reduced the running time substantially and for that, I get that excuse.
The only thing that truly saves the movie is the fact on how well the characters interact to one another, making fun of the dead alien and peeing into the beer cans together. Amazing comedians like Stiller, Vaugh, Hill and Ayoade will have no problem executing practical and comical substances together. For this, I am, officially declaring that this movie to be entitled “Kill This Motherfucker on their Penis”, recommending them to take more weeds instead and stop trying to be nice by offering chewing gum. Oh, please stop continuing to fire on its penis since the poor alien is dead now – the funniest scene that I genuinely enjoyed.
The Watch is a passable and watchable comedy despite its bad genre mash-up and having a plot that is too predictable and lazy to expand.
MY RATING:
Story: 2.5
Casts: 4.0
Cinematography: 3.5
Effects: 4.0
GREEN-TEA-O-METER: 12.6/20.0
