Movie Reviews: The Watch

This week, Papa Kenn Reviews THE WATCH! A comedy starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Jill, and US cinema newcomer: Richard Ayoade!

“The Watch”
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Writers: Jared Stern, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Starring: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade

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Review Transcript:
It sucks!

Okay fine, I guess I can’t waste your time with such a short review, even though this movie wasted mine.

The Watch revolves around four guys: Evan (Ben Stiller), Bob (Vince Vaughn), Franklin (Jonah Hill), and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade) that come together to form a neighborhood watch after an unfortunate incident strikes the area. If you’ve seen any of the trailers, you’ll know that the incident involves aliens.

So why does it suck? Hmm…where to begin…

1) LAME CHARACTERS! You’d think with a cast of veteran comedians, at least one of them could portray a character that is enjoyable at the very least. Well, actually Ayoade was pretty enjoyable. The problem? He’s the only one! The rest are all empty shells devoid of personality that are consistently annoying, idiotically uptight, or just downright creepy. I’d expect this from Stiller, but I expect more from Vaugh- um, well I expect more from Hill after the phenomenal 21 Jump Street! I am disappoint, Jonah.

2) HORRIBLE STORYLINE! It’s slow, it’s slow, it’s boring, something moderately interesting happens that inevitably leads to nowhere…and back to boring. Wait, things are kinda getting interesting here with the sci-fi elements and…it gets ruined by one of the most idiotically stupid plot points I’ve ever seen. Oh, and then there are a couple subplots that are almost as solid as a tree house held together with used scotch tape. Covered in cat hair. From the dollar store.

3) PATHETIC CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! Character development isn’t necessary for a comedy, but its necessity depends on each movie. The Watch attempts to make us care about these characters, only to fall flat on its face and just make us (or me anyway) wish they would just shut up and hurry things along. When character development does happen, it’s handled so poorly in conjunction with the weakly established characters that I wished most of them would just die in a fire.

4) IT’S BORING! With the exception of maybe the last 10 minutes of the movie and maybe one…no, two scenes around the halfway mark, nothing happens. Blame it on bad pacing, pathetic storyline, and it’s just…

5) NOT FUNNY! What’s the one thing you expect from a comedy? For it to be funny! Stiller is horribly boring, stuck up, and unfunny. Vaughn is an annoying idiot until the end when he reaches some vague semblance of relatability. Hill’s character Franklin has potential to be crazy and kooky and hilarious, but really just ends up being creepy. Then there’s Richard Ayoade as Jamarcus. I feel bad for him, since this pathetic excuse for a comedy is his first big venture into the world of movies, and he’s the only consistently funny character. As funny as the movie will let him be, anyway.

Throw all of this together with mediocre sci-fi elements and painfully generic aliens, and you have The Watch. Barely entertaining enough to be called a movie, the only positive element to this movie was the character Jamarcus, who at least managed to make me chuckle occasionally and kept me from walking out of the theater. If not for him, I can count on one hand how many times I actually laughed at this movie. In fact, I can count the score for this movie on one hand!

I give The Watch: 2 / 10

Congratulations, you’re my lowest score to date and I pity anyone that pays money to watch you in any format.

I’m Papa Kenn, and I’ll see you next review.