On the surface, The Watch would seem to be gifted with an embarrassment of riches. Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Vince Vaughn are the cream of the comedy crop, and Brit multi-hyphenate Richard Ayoade(The IT Crowd, Submarine) is also no slouch in that department. Dreamed up by the writing tandem of Seth Rogen and Evan Golderg, who gave us the modern classic Superbad, all the pieces are in place for what should at the very least be a competent if not spectacular romp. Instead what we get is a lazy, uninspired waste that fails both as a comedy and as science-fiction.
Yeah, science-fiction, because there's more to The Watch than merely throwing these four funny people into a room and letting them riff off one another for 90 minutes. If they had done that, we'd probably be talking about how much fun this movie is, but instead we're dragged through an alien invasion subplot that isn't clever enough to appeal to sci-fi geeks or funny enough for everyone else. Stiller does his usual working stiff routine as Evan Troutwig, a suburban pantywaist and control freak with a hot wife(Rosemarie DeWitt) and mediocre job as a Costco store manager. With enough friends to be counted on zero fingers, Evan spends his time creating new clubs and then running them with an iron fist, but it's when a Costco security guard is found slaughtered that he finds his true calling. With the police too self-involved and stupid to solve the crime, Evan starts his own neighborhood watch program, which nobody in town seems to give a crap about.
A handful of oddballs do turn up, although they don't have much interest in doing any crime solving. Vince Vaughn plays Bob, a tough, overgrown manchild who joins only so he can have a beer with the fellas down in his tricked out man cave. Jonah Hill is Franklin, who is basically like the character Hill played in 21 Jump Street if he was raised by Ted Nugent. A wannabe cop who washed out of the program, Franklin is a creepy loser with a gun fetish and tough facade. And then there's scene-stealing Richard Ayoade as Jemarcus, a sly Brit with a mop of hair and a serious jones for Asian women. Ayoade is the real wild card here, and his laid back, easy going charm from across the pond makes for a welcome change from his showy counterparts.
After the group's first meeting goes belly up, Evan ropes them all into doing some actual neighborhood watching, which is when the film really starts to sink, and not even these comedy heavyweights can pull it out of the muck. An obscene infatuation with genitals and body fluid humor reeks of desperation as the plot muddles on by with little reason for excitement. The gang's first stake out is a woefully unfunny slog where the highlight is Bob peeing in a soda can. Even as extraterrestrials are revealed to be the perpetrators of the local killings, the plot never spins off into any interesting direction. There's a prime opportunity wasted as the suburban malaise gives way to alien paranoia similar to the far superior Tom Hanks comedy, The 'Burbs, but the script isn't smart enough to take advantage. Nor do they really capitalize on the 'R'-rating, with much of the bawdy elements long spoiled in numerous trailers. The jokes that actually work are few and far between, and come mostly when the group is together and shedding the shackles of their boring characters through improvisation. One such moment comes in the middle of a Costco showroom where Bob obsesses over the penis size of the guy his rebellious daughter is dating. The rest of the time the talented cast is mostly bumping into each other on the way to the next failed punchline. Ayoade actually finds more success on his own, in particular when his character lucks into a nearby orgy. Vaughn hits a surprising authenticity in the storyline involving his character's daughter, who is growing up faster than he's prepared for.Much of the blame for how disappointing The Watch is lays at the feet of director, Akiva Schaffer. For some reason, Schaffer has been able to bluff people into thinking he's a credible director due to the occasionally imaginative work he's done on SNL and with The Lonely Island, but when it comes to features he's rank amateur. Much like his terrible debut film, Hot Rod, Schaffer fails to bring the appropriate silliness and over-the-top qualities a movie like this is screaming out for. He isn't comfortable in staging the few action sequences there are, and doesn't leave much of an impression anywhere else, either. Unfortunately, The Watch was probably always going to have lousy direction, as the uninspiring Shawn Levy was in the running for the job initially.
The Watch squanders its unbelievable star power with a tired script, inconsistent plotting, and stagnant direction. Even though the film will likely strike box office gold this weekend, Stiller, Hill, Vaughn, and hopefully Ayoade will find greater creative success. So it might be wise to hold out and watch them in something else.
