Julien Neaves – Editor
Three years ago I watched a review of 2017 buddy cop action comedy CHiPs by our current senior writer Sommerleigh Pollonais (you can watch it here) and she gave the film 5/10 in a very unflattering review.
Well the movie hit Latin America/Caribbean Netflix recently and I decided to watch it for the first time. To call this movie a turd would be disrespectful to turds.
The film, a modern take on the late 70s/early 80s TV series of the same name, was written and directed by Dax Shepard (Zathura: A Space Adventure, Idiocracy) who also stars as dim witted California Highway Patrol officer Jon Baker. Michael Peña plays his sex-obsessed partner Frank “Ponch” Poncherollo.
Not since Baywatch (which also came out in 2017) have I watched a comedy and not laughed once. Like Shepard’s inept cop every shot misses. And the film really scrapes the barrel to try and elicit a laugh including gay jokes, sexist jokes and vomiting jokes. I don’t mind crude humour but it has to, you know, actually be funny.
Shepard and Peña have zero chemistry and the rest of the cast are completely wasted including Kristen Bell, Shepard’s wife, who is reduced to eye candy, and Vincent D’Onofrio, who is barely interesting as a bad guy. CHiPs so badly wants to be 21 Jump Street but it is all raunch with no punch. Even the few action scenes are very generic.
There is absolutely no reason to recommend this movie and you can find a million better ways to spend an hour and 41 minutes. Let these CHiPs lay where they fell.
Rating: 2 out of 10
For Sommer’s Quick Bite review of The Lovebirds you can click here.