The Watch

The Watch: A great cast including Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade assembles for a mess of a movie that gets by on a decent laugh quotient. Stiller plays the manager of a Costco where an employee turns up dead under mysterious circumstances. He initiates a neighborhood watch that includes the rest of the above named costars, and they soon find out that their town is being invaded by aliens. Much of the blame for this not achieving very good or classic status must fall on director Akiva Schaffer, whose previous effort was the Andy Samberg misfire Hot Rod. Schaffer does a good enough job of drawing funny moments from his ensemble, but the alien invasion element feels like an afterthought more than the driving force of the plot. It almost seems as if the filmmakers started out making an alien invasion movie, got scared, and decided to focus on dick jokes. It’s co-written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the guys who wrote Pineapple Express, a film near and dear to my heart. I liked the idea of them tackling sci-fi comedy. I envisioned Ghostbusters with aliens and a lot of curse words. Instead, it’s just a mess with enough laughs to mildly recommend it.