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“The Watch” is a wretchedly unfunny comedy and a new low for its star, Ben Stiller.
On paper, and in the advertising campaign, “The Watch” is about Stiller forming a run of the mill neighborhood watch with Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and British import Richard Ayoade, and they somehow wind up fighting aliens.
In execution, the movie barely cares about this premise and would rather join the ranks of relentlessly vulgar comedies. Upon founding the group, Stiller learns his recruits are a trio of immature nitwits who would rather drink beer and talk trash in Vaughn’s man cave than go on patrol. “Man cave” is one of those pop phrases I swore I would never use, but given this movie’s Neanderthal level of humor, it’s the only phrase that fits.
Every conversation, and I do mean every one, degenerates into a discussion of a certain part of the male anatomy or a certain bodily fluid. At some point, even Beavis and Butt-Head would stop cackling at this stuff and say, “Dudes, find some new material.”
Stiller’s character, the chipper and idealistic manager of the local Costco, rarely plunges to the same depths of childishness as his co-stars, as if the actor wants to cash in on the movement toward tasteless comedies but personally remain above it.
The idea that these four bozos are so preoccupied with measuring their own manhood that they frequently forget about an alien invasion might have been funny. But director Akiva Shaffer, a “Saturday Night Live” veteran whose one previous feature was the Andy Samberg vehicle “Hot Rod,” suffers from the same attention deficit disorder as his main characters. It slips his mind that this is supposed to be about an alien invasion, because the plot gets dropped for huge chunks of time during the film’s first half.
Maybe that’s for the best, because “The Watch” is a science fiction parody made by people with no interest in science fiction. It doles out stale “E.T.” and “Close Encounters” jokes, but most of the alien invasion story is generic and uninspired.
The plotting is unoriginal, too. When the heroes discover the aliens can take human form, the story belatedly adopts an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” model. Everything that follows is obvious. The people the guys are certain must be aliens will turn out not to be. The misleads couldn’t be plainer.
“The Watch” might have just been an inept, potty-mouthed comedy, but it also becomes creepy, and not in a horror movie way. When not fighting aliens, the guys spend much of their patrol time assaulting, threatening and, in one instance, hitting on teenagers. Most of this stems from Vaughn’s unhealthy interest in his teenage daughter’s sex life. This subplot resolves itself with a strange turn toward sentimentality.
Shaffer tries to graft a heart onto the crass material, Judd Apatow-style, but the results are laughably artificial. Stiller and his “Dodgeball” co-star Vaughn share thoughts on the disappointments of modern life, which underscores how both actors seem too old to be playing such morons. Shaffer also invests much time in the “serious” subplot that deals with Stiller being unable to father children because of sterility. It’s a strange subject for a film this puerile to address, though it does thematically connect to the characters’ fascination with the male reproductive system.
The script is credited to Jared Stern and the “Superbad” team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. They can be forgiven if they wrote this when they were 12.
The big question, which you can’t help but ask with movies this dismal, is what were the stars thinking when they signed on?
Ayoade, who has a cult following from his British sit-com “The IT Crowd,” may not have known better, because this is his first feature and he probably leaped at the first chance to spread his fame stateside.
But the American stars all have at least one superior comedy on their resumes. Stiller did “There’s Something About Mary.” Vaughn did “Swingers.” Hill did “Superbad.” They should be able to recognize a terrible script. And we do know Ayoade has taste because he directed one of the best “Community” episodes, the one that parodied “My Dinner With Andre.”
Did these four talented, intelligent actors – one of them an Academy Award nominee – think that endless ruminations on genitalia were comedy gold? Or were their paychecks really that big? “The Watch” has to rank as the worst film of their careers. And remember, Vaughn starred in the “Psycho” remake.
What’s especially sad is that so many comedians are following Adam Sandler’s lead, when the opposite should be true.
• Jeffrey Westhoff writes reviews movies for the Northwest Herald. Email him at sidetracks@nwherald.com.
“The Watch”
1 star
Rated R for pervasive language, violent images and some strong sexual content including references
Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Who’s in it: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade
What’s it about: Suburbanite Stiller forms a run of the mill neighborhood watch with Vaughn, Hill and Ayoade. To their surprise, they wind up fighting aliens hiding out in the local Costco.