Sandy Kenyon movie review: 'Baywatch'

NEW YORK (WABC) -- This holiday weekend brings a trip down memory lane at the movies.

The hit show 'Baywatch' is getting a reboot on the big screen with some big names joining the cast. But is it worth the cost of admission?

The TV series 'Baywatch' was never going to win any Emmy awards for excellence, but it offered a pleasant diversion in a simpler time.

The big screen version mimics the original TV show without ever capturing its cheesy charm.

Beaches and bikinis, surf and sand. What's not to like?

Plenty as it turns out, because what should have been a light romp turns into a long dull slog through a story that is as stupid as it is unlikely.

The script should never have been shot, but the stars decided to take the money and run.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson plays the head of a crew of lifeguards so intent on playing detective, he is derelict in his actual duties.

Zac Efron plays a disgraced Olympic swimmer sent to Mitch's Beach to do community service. Zac has proven he can be funny, but 'Neighbors' this is not.

Movies based on cheesy old TV series can be funny. The best of these mock the source material in a sly and entertaining way.

But the bomb that is 'Baywatch' neglects comedy in favor of a drama that has the lifeguards trying to catch a villain, played by Priyanka Chopra from ABC's 'Quantico'.

It may be another step forward for her career, but what's in it for us?

A few super-raunchy jokes some millennials found funny at a screening I attended, but that can't compensate for the credibility gaps in a story that asks us to believe the only folks who can stop the flow of drugs onto the beach are these goofy lifeguards.

This is the worst movie I have seen so far this year, a bad experience tempered only slightly by the fact I didn't have to pay to see it.

I have only contempt for those who made it, and so must use again words I preserve for the very lowest of the low: I just wasted two hours of my life so you won't have to!