Movie Review: "The Watch" (2012)

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Movie: "The Watch"
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Year: 2012
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Evan (Ben Stiller) is manager at a local Costco and extremely involved in his community. After his friend and nighttime security guard Chucho (Mel Rodriguez) gets murdered in the store while on duty, Evan forms a neighborhood watch group. A couple of people show up to the first meeting, including Bob (Vince Vaughn), a salesman and father, Franklin (Jonah Hill), a wannabe cop survivalist nut-job, and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade), an oddball neighbor. Together, they patrol the neighborhood, though much of their time is spent drinking beer in Bob's basement. They get more than they bargained for when they find out that it's not a human murderer they are looking for, and that their town is actually being invaded by aliens.

While this movie had a great concept with a decent cast (of actors who used to be hilarious), it falls completely flat and is otherwise disappointing. We found ourselves pity-laughing throughout this film...we yearn for the days when Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, and Vince Vaughn could make us laugh without trying. Now, comedies seem to be jam-packed with comedic "superstars" and still fail at producing laughs.

Vince Vaughn's fast-talking comedic style is getting tiresome. It was funny the first 100 times, and now, it's old and tired. Ben Stiller was fine in this, he plays the straight-man. Thinner Jonah Hill doesn't really fit the role in this movie of a failed cop/survivalist, even though we know he was hysterical in "21 Jump Street." I feel like Richard Ayoade was under used in this movie. Will Forte has one of the funnier roles in this movie, though, even though he played the cliched local dumb cop. Billy Crudup and Rosemarie Dewitt were also not utilized to their full potential.

This movie took too long to get moving. Once it got there, it didn't deliver anything fantastic. It's just another movie viewers can add to the list of films that had a good concept but failed in its execution...and that list just keeps getting bigger and bigger with these flop comedies.

My Rating: 4/10
BigJ's Rating: 4/10
IMDB's Rating: 5.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 17%
Do we recommend this movie: No.