" I never expected to get this sort of reaction so early "

The Watch

Concerned local citizen Evan (Ben Stiller) leads four men in a local neighbourhood watch. Evan's less than impressive team consists of his over enthusiastic neighbour Bob (Vince Vaughn), wannabe cop Franklin (Jonah Hill) and new resident to the town Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade). The watch is established when Evan's Costco employee and friend is murdered, although the team do little more than scare teenage vandals. Miraculously the team of misfits soon find themselves protecting their neighbourhood form an alien invasion.

In recent years there have been many notable films that blend science fiction and comedy from classics such as Ghostbusters to modern hits such as Men in Black. Perhaps no duo have done it better than Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in their much loved films Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. The Watch tries to go down a similar path but unfortunately misses the mark in terms of comedy and science fiction. The aliens offer nothing original to the genre as they are nothing more than a hybrid of Predator and the Alien. However the lack of originality with the aliens is not the underlying issue with this film.

Director Akiva Schaffer who is a writer and director on Saturday Night Live is still trying to make his mark on Hollywood having only directed the small budget film Hot Rod. Schaffer tries to create a bromance film where the four leads bounce off one another but unfortunately there is very little chemistry. It seems that Schaffer was almost distracted by the science fiction elements and as a result the humour between the four suffer.

I believe this film could have been more successful if there were no aliens at all, with the film instead focusing on the four main characters as they protect their town from a real life threat. The aliens appear almost as a lazy inclusion as if the writers couldn't come up with a realistic or original scenario for the four men to investigate. One of the major letdowns in the film is the script. Writers Jared Stern, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg choose to focus on predictable penis jokes instead of witty humour. As a result there are very few likeable characters and virtually no character development with each character as creepy and weird as the next.

The casting choice of the four leads seemed like comic gold but there is so little chemistry between them that most of the humour seems forced. Stiller and Vaughn are both looking a bit older but their characters haven't changed a bit. Stiller plays the familiar energetic control freak and Vaughn is as hyper as usual as he tries to squeeze as much dialogue into each scene as possible. Hill is probably the best character as the borderline psychotic oddball (although not the only one) who is really starting to become a sought-after actor. Ayoade is made out to equally as strange as Hill but is tragically given very few lines. However Ayoade makes the most of what he is given and provides the majority of the laughs. If you haven't seen his show The IT Crowd then do yourself a favour and seek it out, as it is one of the funniest shows to come out of Britain.

The Watch is a little disappointing as there are countless plot holes and an overemphasis on cheap toilet humour. The Watch does offer some genuine laughs but the comedic talent of the four main actors are underutilised and overshadowed by the supernatural aspect of the film, with the end result a film that is hesitant to commit to either genre.