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| Vaughn, Stiller, Hill, and Ayoade- The Neighborhood Watch |
Evan Trautwig (Ben Stiller) is your average Joe and
outstanding citizen devoted to the welfare of Glenview. Evan is the founder of
the neighborhood running club and a handful of other community activities.
After one of his work colleges, Antonio (Joe Nunez), is found murdered, and the
dumb-as-bricks local law enforcement refuses to pursue the case; Evan takes it
upon himself to form a neighborhood watch to find Antonio’s killer and protect
Glenview’s citizens. Contrary to Evans hopes of a big turnout of concerned
residents, only three corny middle aged men (Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and
Richard Ayoade) are willing to join the watch. Unfortunately, Evans recruits
are more focused on drinking and catching some break time from their everyday
family lives rather than protecting Glenview. Once Evan’s watch does some
investigating, they discover the person who killed Antonio isn’t a person at
all: it’s an alien. Can “The Watch” capture their out-of-this-world murder suspect
and unearth the truth to why aliens are invading Glenview?
I walked into the movie theater with high hopes for “The
Watch” despite the fact it is a comedy centered around uncovering an alien plot.
After all it had an all-star cast of Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller, and Vince Vaughn;
some of the biggest names in the film industry (only to be rivaled by “The
Expendables”). I couldn’t have been more wrong. It had maybe two instances where
I
chuckled, and not even that hard. Most of the comedy was sex related, which
dried up after about ten minutes, along with the whole “comedy” aspect of this
film. After the comedy element disappeared, it felt more like a mediocre,
(which even that’s a stretch) poorly executed, sci-fi action/mystery flick than
a comedy. With a 70 million dollar budget, you would expect excellent special
effects. Wrong, the Aliens don’t even look real, nor do the gory wounds.
What really disappointed me about “The Watch” was the awful
acting. Even though it was a letdown as far as the plot and script goes, I would
have guessed that Stiller, Hill, and Vaughn all performing together would have
at least partially made up for the horrific storyline. Wrong again. I was
shocked by everyone’s performance. Well, Jonah Hills’ wasn’t that bad. Nobody seemed to fit their
role, especially Vaughn. Akiva Schaffer had to be crazy to make Vince Vaughn an
eccentric, thick, suburban dad. It was almost painful to watch such a gifted
cast struggle and fail so miserably. I would have much rather preferred the original
idea of direction by David Dobkin and Will Ferrell to play Evan, in place of
Ben Stiller. “The Watch”s only saving grace was the short lived humor at the
beginning. Needless to say, “The Watch” was a total car wreck. On a scale of
evening price, matinee price, wait for it on DVD, or skip it; I rate it skip it and can confidently rate it one
and a half stars.
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