Baywatch panned by international critics, but Priyanka's act gets lauded

Mumbai: After Deeepika Padukone became one of the first Bollywood actresses to act in a big Hollywood film opposite superstar Vin Diesel in ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’, our very own desi girl Priyanka Chopra has also gone the Hollywood way with 'Baywatch.’

While the film hits the Indian theatres on June 2, it will release this Friday in the USA. The first reviews of the film after a special screening for media are out and there is some bad news for the makers.

A majority of the critics have trashed the film left, right and centre, for its unimpressive plot, forced humour which includes unnecessary usage of expletives and lack of charm.

New York Post wrote, “It washes up on the beach like a dead whale… Even the action scenes need CPR, often undermined by effects so chintzy, you wonder if the money intended for them was instead eaten up by the production’s seven-figure waxing budget. It’s a shame. The cast is capable, and a meta-examination of 'Baywatch' should have produced something sharper.”

Telegraph said, "The plot, about an Indian gangster queen (Priyanka Chopra) importing drugs along the coast, is wafer-thin and perfunctory at best. And yet, somehow, Gordon stretches the movie’s running time to two hours, beefing it up with a fatuous romantic subplot and not one, but two heinously long-winded penile gags ripped straight from the Farrelly brothers’ textbook of gross-out comedy."

"The endless profusion of F-bombs seems to indicate that the screenwriters must have thought they would be paid per use," Frank Scheck wrote in his review for The Hollywood Reporter.

Popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has given it a ‘rotten’ rating after getting a rating of just 14% with 42 reviews.

The website wrote, "Baywatch takes its source material’s jiggle factor to R-rated levels, but lacks the original’s campy charm — and leaves its charming stars flailing in the shallows."

Even the usually dependable Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was not been spared.

Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Baywatch — the rare movie that even the Teflon-coated, thousand-watt charisma of Dwayne Johnson can’t save. It’s possible that this sloppy, scattershot nod to ’90s jiggle TV was inevitable."

Priyanks Chopra’s act as the villain Victoria Leeds, however, was lauded by numerous critics.

Radio Times wrote, "Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra judges the mood perfectly, playing the villain with exactly the right amount of dramatic flair (“I’m not a Bond villain… yet” she teases during an interrogation)."

IGN in its review said, "The only other highlight is Priyanka Chopra as nefarious entrepreneur Victoria Leeds, who outshines pretty much anyone she’s in a scene with. Chopra’s engaging and interesting and is the only character that speaks with any kind of distinctive cadence, with the rest of the cast falling into the exact same pattern of delivery of their hackneyed gags. None of them are given much of anything to do, either."

Elle in in its review wrote, "Priyanka Chopra, though, as real-estate titan villainness Victoria Leeds, makes everything around her look like a really, really nice car commercial."

Birth.Movies.Death wrote, “The Indian goddess brings a (sadly underutilized) brainy charisma to every scene that feels fit for a better picture."

Collider was all praises for Priyanka, writing, "I’ve never seen her TV series Quantico, but she owns the film every second she’s on screen. Victoria isn’t a particularly memorable villain on the page, but Chopra is commanding, and when she gets called an aspiring Bond villain, it made me want her to be the villain in the next Bond movie. If there’s one good thing that can come from the wreckage of this movie, it’s for Chopra’s career in Hollywood films to take off."

Most of the reviewers felt that Priyanka could have perhaps saved the day for the film if she had more screen time.

The Wrap’s review reads, “And if the talented Chopra also has comic chops, they remain untapped here; she’s playing a character who describes herself as aspiring to being a 007 villain, but the actress finds no fun in Victoria’s wickedness.”

About Priyanka, the Guardian said, “Even Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra, the underused villain of the piece, looks like she was contractually obliged to show as much flesh as permissible”.

Critiquing Priyanka's act, Independent wrote, “Despite being incredibly talented, Chopra is clinically underused, the script offering her nothing to work with. ”

“Contrary to this disappointment there’s Priyanka Chopra as the film’s villain (a part reportedly written for a male actor) – it’s a welcome switch from the norm that, while it doesn’t save the film, adds a layer of interest. There’s a reason Chopra is a massive international star,” Den of Geek wrote.

Forbes notes, “Chopra has fun as the baddie, but she stays in the background until the end of the movie and really only gets one big scene at the end of the picture. The showdown is the best moment in the film, one which cleverly plays on gender-specific action movie tropes while showing its female villain no gender-based charity. I wish more movies had female super villains and to its credit, Baywatch doesn’t treat it as a big deal.”

Variety wrote, "Chopra, the crossover Bollywood star, preens and schemes like a vamp from 'Dynasty,' and the whole drugs-and-real-estate plot has a musty air of sub-'Miami Vice' intrigue — it’s closer to 'Starsky and Hutch.' The trouble is that the movie plays it boringly straight."

Indiewire wrote, "Victoria as a villain has about as much oomph as the barrel of fish she uses to smuggle her drugs. Nothing against Chopra; it’s as if the writers were so pleased with themselves for writing a female villain they forgot to give her a personality."

Some reviewers did give it decent reviews, but they are very few and far between.

It would now be interesting to note how the action comedy will connect with the Indian masses when it releases next weekend.

'Baywatch' is directed by Seth Gordon and also stars Zac Effron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach among others.