The Watch

THE WATCH

111 Minutes

R

Director: Akiva Schaffer

Writers: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg

Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade

Cast

Ben Stiller as Evan

Vince Vaughn as Bob

Jonah Hill as Franklin

Richard Ayoade as Jamarcus

Rosemarie DeWitt as Evan's wife

Will Forte as Sergeant Bressman

'...Cause for real, a mind is a terrible thing to waste' - DEAD PREZ 

The Plot

Three kids, Evan, Bob, and Franklin stumble upon a rare Casio wrist watch. They accidentally discover that they can manipulate time with this device. Which only leads to a series of immature pranks. Like traveling to 1973, so they could pull down the pants of Henry Kissinger, as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

No, this isn't really what the movie is about. But I kind of wish it was. Everyone involved with THE WATCH is capable of making a better movie. I wouldn't call it half-baked, but rather a full baked idea. THE WATCH is an incomplete movie that started out with a good enough idea, but clearly someone got bored in the middle (or closer to the beginning) of making this.

ILLEGAL ALIENS WORKING AT COSTCO

Ben Stiller plays a Costco manager, who has a rather boring and predictable life in the suburbs. Upon arriving at work one morning, the police tell him that the night security guard is disemboweled, but not by aliens.

This is not the Ben you love from TROPIC THUNDER, he's the full-on, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM/MEET THE PARENTS-Ben Stiller.

The police department doesn't know what they're doing. So Evan vows to avenge the murder of his kinda-work-friend. At this point, he knows nothing of aliens, or their planned invasion. So Evan, Bob, Franklin, and Jamarcus form the neighborhood watch. This is where the supposed fun begins...

'He Walks Amongst Us, But He Is Not One Of Us.'

One of the neighborhood watchmen is an alien. He's the actor you never heard of. 

Vince Vaughn's character is just that dumb white guy in any commercial. You know the guy: when his wife is on vacation, he blows up the kitchen, trying to cook breakfast for the kids. Uh-oh, someone should have picked up McGriddles at the drive through.

That's A Wrap

You should buy this movie. That's right, I said that. Go to Costco, and buy several copies of THE WATCH. Then you take the movie cases from that box set of GAME OF THRONES, that you own. Make fake labels for the DVDs themselves, so everything looks completely legitimate. Then, give it as a present on April Fools' Day, with a post-it that says, 'because I love you'.  Two months later, when said person actually wants to watch GAME OF THRONES, they'll notice that all the discs are copies of this crappy movie. From there, I'd imagine you might become the victim of domestic violence. 

Final Verdict: 45  out of 100

21 Jump Street

21 JUMP STREET
R
109 Minutes
Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller Writers: Michael Bacall (screenplay), Michael Bacall (story), Jonah Hill
Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube

This may be hard to believe, but I watched a lot of TV as a young kid. 21 Jump Street just wasn't on my radar, probably because it wasn't a cartoon, and it didn't have a laugh track. It’s the show that launched Johnny Depp's career, he departed after a few seasons to make Edward Scissorhands (1990).

21 Jump Street doesn't take it self too seriously. Almost like a movie Judd Apatow would make. This film is completely unoriginal, but in a good way. A celebration of cheesy clichés. Which includes a one-dimensional, multicultural criminal syndicate.

2005 was a much simpler time. The only means of communication kids had were: email, text messaging, instant messaging, MySpace, analog paper notes, Morse Code, and soup cans. Schmidt and Jenko went to the same high school, seven years ago. Schmidt was a dork in high school, and the other guy was a football star. Things are different this time around. Schmidt becomes popular, and it really gets to his head.

Ice cube plays the police captain Captian Tennill Dickson; which is like Ron Jeremy teaching sex-ed at an all-girls Catholic school.

Their assignment: to infiltrate a high school, and arrest young girls that would be involved in statutory rape. But really, they need to find the source of a deadly, new synthetic drug. A drug that makes you see the color of time.

There’s a bitchin' party at the parents house. They buy a couple kegs, and steal drugs from the evidence locker back at the station. You can guess what happens here. The parents come back early from vacation. Schmidt becomes the coolest mac-daddy at school.

Glory days, glory daze

It's your typical high school revenge fantasy: shooting classmates...on film...in a pretend movie. This is the real revenge of the nerds.

Look at that Andrea character on 90210. She was well into her 30s; I thought she was a member of the faculty…that was going to retire soon.

'Going back to high school' movies are a close cousin of the body-switching movies. High school movies, of any kind are never about people in high school. There a product of a youth obsessed culture. Involving the high school world of geeks and jocks; that only exists in movies. If they aren't cops, then they're magazine writers for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Comedies are only meant to 90 minutes long. About 10 or 15 minutes worth of content should have been cut. I do like the surprise ending, like Steven Seagal in The Onion Movie (2008) as the 'crotch puncher'.

Final Verdict: 85 out of 100