A nightwatchman gets skinned alive and obliterated at a Costco in a suburban town and store manager Evan (Ben Stiller) assembles a neighborhood watch group to find his co-worker’s killer in The Watch, a science-fiction/comedy which, in fits and starts, is an amusing movie. Proudly crude and vulgar, The Watch tells an aliens-attacking-Earth story with an underlying mix of subplots which take the film down tangential paths that never truly lead anywhere. The film lacks a focal point, unless that focal point is to simply throw a little graphic violence, graphic humor, and star power at the wall and see what sticks. And the problem is, little really does.
Seeing Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade riff with one another has intermittent hilarity, but ultimately The Watch suffers mightily from its poorly constructed story which incorporates way, way too much. As a result, the screenplay by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Jared Stern delivers moments too scattershot to mean anything once the film, or in some instances the scene, comes to an end.
Tags: Ben Stiller, Comedy, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, Science Fiction, Seth Rogen, The Watch, Vince Vaughn
