CHiPs Review
R: Crude Sexual Content, Graphic Nudity, Pervasive Language, Some Violence and Drug Use.
Warner Bros. Pictures, RatPac Entertainment
1 Hr and 40 Minutes
Cast: Dax Shepard, Michael Peña, Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Brody, Rosa Salazar, Vida Guerra, Kristen Bell, Maya Rudolph, Justin Chatwin, Ben Falcone, Jessica McNamee, Mae Whitman
REVIEW: Back in the 1980s there was a popular NBC television named CHiPs which was about the adventures of two California highway patrol officers starring Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada. It was a show way before my birth, but from the information that I gathered, the original show was a wholesome lighthearted show for the whole family. Today, Hollywood has brought back the beloved 80s series and TOOK A BIG SHIT ON IT!
Jon Baker and Frank "Ponch" Poncherello have just joined the California Highway Patrol in Los Angeles, but for very different reasons. Baker is a former motorbike rider who's trying to put his life and marriage back together. Poncherello is a cocky, undercover FBI agent who's investigating a multimillion-dollar heist that may be an inside job. Forced to work together, the inexperienced rookie and hardened veteran begin clashing instead of clicking while trying to nab the bad guys.
THE GOOD: I genuinely got nothing good to say about this movie for filled me with nothing but rage and hate.
THE BAD: I don’t know what is it with Hollywood and taking old television properties and adapting them into R-rated comedies but THIS SHIT NEEDS TO STOP! This year we get a double dose of this with CHiPs and Baywatch and after watching CHiPs I’m really not looking forward to Baywatch. We already have two great R-rated comedies of this type and that is 21 Jump Street and its sequel 22 Jump Street. The reason why those films work is because Phil Lord and Chris Miller are creative and know how to both write and direct movies. They take a simplistic idea and not only creatively expand it into something fun but they also know how to adapt it into something smart.
Dax Shepard is no Phil Lord/Chris Miller.
LET ME SAY IT AGAIN!
DAX SHEPARD
IS NO
PHIL LORD & CHRIS MILLER
This may be the first time I’ll say this, but if this was a PG13 film it would’ve been funny. The reason the 2004 Starsky & Hutch film adaptation sorta-worked was due to its PG13 rating. It had its crude humor and risqué jokes, but it still maintained its good nature to its source material. This just takes everything people loved about the source material and gives it the generic raunchy comedy treatment.
I can just imagine the business meeting at Warner Bros. where some studio exec comes into the office saying, “Hey we got the rights to make a CHiPs movie. Should we get somebody put some effort into the screenplay?” And the studio heads’ response was.
Not everything has to be raunchy and rated R. Just because Sony did it doesn’t mean you have to do it. Sony was actually surprised they struck gold with those movies. The reason Hill and Tatum were perfect together was because they worked off the 3 C’s: character, charisma, chemistry. If you are a film with all three qualities, then you earn yourself an automatic 3-star rating from me. You can give me the same generic story, I don’t care, the 3 Cs is what I look for. The reason I was alright with Let’s Be Cops was because Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson had the charisma and the chemistry. Dax Shepard and Michael Peña has none of the three. For the first half of the film they just constantly bicker so much that I got annoyed to a point to where I got a migraine. Not a headache, but a migraine. My head was just fuming seeing how much these two bickered in this.
The filmmaking is extremely televised where it relies on nothing but quick zooms that are out of a film from the 90s. The whole time sitting there I’m thinking, “Boy I wonder when the Comedy Central logo is going to show up.” For God’s sake, they bleep out Shepard’s dick in one of the visual gags. Granted, that is a blessing but they’ll you show tits on a phone but not Shepard’s dick. The only thing that is mildly impressive is a number of explosions this film has. This film has so many explosions that I’m just surprised how much faith the studio had in Shepard so he can blow shit up.
Here is where I surprise you, though. I BELIEVE DAX SHEPARD CAN MAKE A GOOD MOVIE!
As much I hate this movie, I believe Shepard works better behind a camera than on camera. When the film has its car chase sequences, Shepard directs them with skill and precision. Give Shepard a good action screenplay and I believe he’ll make a decent action film. His 2012 comedy, Hit & Run was mildly amusing because of his chemistry with Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard and the humor of Bradley Cooper. Kristen Bell is in this movie but she’s really underplayed. I love how he puts her in his movies but if they’re not together looking cute, the what’s the point?
Though His next film he’s directing and writing is S.C.O.O.B which is a CG Scooby Doo film for Warner Bros that I’m looking forward to. Somehow, I have faith in that because you can’t get lower than Raja Gosnell who is a poison to every film adaptation he gets his hands on.
Michael Peña a good actor is not a full on comedian, but he has comedic chops. We saw it in Ant-Man where he was the humorous comic relief. Peña is a good actor and delivers a good performance but that performance is undercut by the terrible script.
OH YEAH! The worst thing about this movie is that IT IS UNFUNNY!
All of the jokes are predictable. The plot is predictable. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MOVIE FILM IS PREDICTABLE! Even if a comedy is predictable you should be having fun with it which you don’t with this. I GOT FIVE LAUGHS in this and none of them came from either Peña or Shepard. It relies so much on unfunny sex humor that even the basic setups make no sense. The only joke that made me laugh out loud is when one of the CHiPs officers runs over a crowd of paparazzi. That was a joke that had standard setup, punchline, and execution. It was something funny and clever. Shame that was the only memorable joke in that entire movie.
LAST STATEMENT: With a terrible script and minus chemistry between the two leads, Dax Shepard’s CHiPs is an unfunny good for nothing adaptation that is less like its source material and more like Warner Bros.’ desperate attempt at their own 21 Jump Street.
Rating: 0.5/5 | 17%
Super Scene: Red Vs. Blue (Motorcycle Edition)
