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The Watch

Release Date 24 Aug 2012 31 Jan 2013

  • User rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.
  • Critic rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.

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An outrageous comedy in which four everyday suburban guys (played by Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill & Richard Ayoade) come together to form a neighbourhood watch group, but only as an excuse to escape their humdrum lives one night a week. But when they accidentally discover that their town has become overrun with aliens posing as ordinary suburbanites, they have no choice but to save their neighbourhood -- and the world -- from total extermination.

Cast:
Jonah Hill | Ben Stiller | Vince Vaughn | Billy Crudup | Will Forte | Richard Ayoade | Doug Jones | Rosemarie Dewitt | Nicholas Braun | Willam Belli | Jorma Taccone | Joe Nunez | Anissa Capobianco | Patricia French

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  • Critic rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.

Movies.ie Critic Review

THE WATCH (USA/15A/102mins)

Directed by Akiva Schaffer. Starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade,  Rosemarie DeWitt, Will Forte, Mel Rodriguez, Doug Jones.

THE PLOT: We’re in the generic – and fictional – suburban town of Glenview, Ohio, and the neighbourhood is about to witness the first real excitement of its existence; an alien invasion. As luck would have it for Evan Troutwig (Stiller), he’s the manager of the local Costco, which the aliens have made their base – given that it pretty much stocks anything they might need. But Evan isn’t going down without a fight, especially after his new night watchman (Joseph A. Nunez) ends up brutally murdered. And so Evan heads up a neighbourhood watch, joined by would-be cop Franklin (Hill), philandering party animal Bob (Vaughn) and freshly divorced Brit Jamarcus (Ayoade).

THE VERDICT: What the hell has happened to Ben Stiller? The one-time box-office champ who smartly repackaged Woody Allen for the MTV generation, for a long, long time, Ben Stiller could do no wrong. And then the sequels took a hold.

Just about everyone involved in Little Fockers deserves grief, but even when Stiller steps into something half decent these days - such as 2011’s fine ‘80s tribute Tower Heist - cinema-goers stay away in their millions. Not that The Watch deserves any better, being a lame, lazy-ass, by-the-numbers comedy that, despite the genre mashup, gives off the distinct smell of being well past its sell-by date.  RATING: 2/5

Review by Paul Byrne 

  • Avg User rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.

User Reviews

    • Currently 2/5 Stars.

    mart

    All of this builds a pretty catastrophic picture of The Watch - and I think, given how many other awesome, funny, gross and clever comedies are out there, I refuse to be an apologist. It's not an unmitigated disaster, but it's not good - or good enough.

    • Currently 2/5 Stars.

    darthrodney

    Formulaic by the numbers comedy with a few decent laughs sprinkled through ... but nothing original or particularly memorable, most of the the best laughs are in the trailer. Stiller and Vaughn mail in another photocopy of their usual shticks’, Jonah Hill has a few decent laughs too with his usual fare ... Ayoade outshines them all here. I’m sure the sales pitch was bawdy audiult gross out humour ... with Aliens, how can it fail ?!? ... Buttttttt it does ... badly ... best avoided.

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    vu1999uk

    While the comedy is a bit and miss here, there are enough hilarious hits to get it by. The whole cast seem to having a great time and are all good in their parts.

    • Currently 4/5 Stars.

    Tom Kealy

    I think Jonah Hill needed more screen time to play out his character more,..

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    filmbuff2011

    Originally called Neighbourhood Watch but changed to The Watch due to some similarities to a recent crime in America, this film poses the amusing question: if aliens chose not New York but smalltown America as their base of operations to launch an invasion, how would the local community deal with it? A security guard is killed at a wholesale warehouse, so manager Evan (Ben Stiller) sets up a neighbourhood watch. Expecting lots of support from the community, he instead ends up with a lazy but likeable trio of slackers (Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Submarine director Richard Ayoade). When the aliens reveal themselves and their plans for invasion, the gang prepare to fight back and kick alien butt. At some point in script development, this might have been a gentle family film. However, the bawdy humour is more in tone with Superbad and The Hangover. The joke hit-rate is distinctly hit-and-miss though, but there are some good laughs to be had here-and-there. Stiller, Vaughn and Hill are old hands at these types of characters, but it's Ayoade who is the film's real delight. Take the film for what it is and you might just enjoy it.

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