Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller are their typical comedic selves, with help from Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade, in the new comedy The Watch. In the tradition of Old School, Dodgeball, and Wedding Crashers, The Watch appears to be a typical guys movie with a slightly different comedic ensemble (i.e. swap Owen Wilson for Jonah Hill and Will Ferrell for Richard Ayoade or something like that), but it actually delivers a bit more.
Being as how my main complaint about comedies of this sort are that they are predictable and full of raunchy clichéd sex jokes this one struck a different chord with me due to the fact that the neighborhood watch group actually discovers aliens – that’s right, aliens. Now I’m sure you are wondering how this added sci-fi element to the story will work, all I can tell you that I don’t know how it works, but it does. Though there are still sex jokes, clichés and predictability, all of this was easier to digest due to the fact that I was so distracted by the comedic take on the alien invasion.
Ben Stiller plays an uptight Costco manager with an affliction for starting clubs, who forms a neighborhood watch group after the mysterious death of the store’s night watchman. The group starts off as a joke to everyone but Stiller. But Stiller shifts the group’s focus from patrolling the town looking for misdemeanors after he discovers that the town is riddled with aliens disguised as ordinary citizens. The group then decides it is their mission to save their town from invasion. The four guys team up and start taking the down the aliens, who are utterly gross and reminiscent of those in the actual movie Aliens. Again, I cannot emphasize enough that every time an alien came on the screen I was utterly bewildered by the fact that this movie actually contains aliens and that Stiller, Vaughn, and Hill are in it. Perhaps this is part that kept me engaged and intrigued all the way through the film. (I also very thoroughly enjoyed Billy Crudup’s creepy portrayal of Stiller’s new neighbor.)
Though I sometimes get that feeling that movies are a way for Stiller and Vaughn to hang out on Hollywood’s dime, I was able to overlook this and go into The Watch with reasonable expectations and an open mind. If you do the same, then I suspect you will have a good time as well.
