The Watch (formerly Neighborhood Watch)

[BillBrasky]

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Vince Vaughn is in negotiations to join Ben Stiller in Neighborhood Watch, the high-concept, long-in-development comedy from Fox and production shingle 21 Laps.

Akiva Schaffer is directing the sci-fi comedy about a suburban "neighborhood watch" group that serves as a front for dads to get some male-bonding time away from their families. The group finds itself in over its head when it uncovers a plot to destroy the world.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote a recent draft of the script.

Vaughn and Stiller have co-starred together previously to comedy and box office gold. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, made for Fox in 2004, grossed over $114 million domestically.

The two pals have also appeared in each other’s movies, or other movies made by members of their comedy circle, including Starsky & Hutch, Anchorman and Zoolander.

[BillBrasky]

Deadline reports Jonah Hill has joined "Neighborhood Watch" opposite Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. Directed by Akiva Schaffer and co-written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, "Watch" follows a band of slacker dads as their half-hearted snooping accidentally reveals a vast neighborhood watch conspiracy.

[BillBrasky]

I got the new issue of Entertainment Weekly in the mail today and was surprised to see this pic:



I didn't realize that Richard Ayoade was in this; that's pretty cool, I guess this will be his first big role in an American comedy.

To recap, Neighborhood Watch, directed by Akiva Schaffer, is about a group of suburban dads who form a neighborhood watch group to get time away from their families, only to discover a plot by aliens to destroy Earth. The screenplay was written by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg and co-stars Billy Crudup, Will Forte, Nicholas Braun, Rosemarie DeWitt and Joe Nunez. 20th Century Fox will be releasing Neighborhood Watch in theaters July 27th, 2012.

[BillBrasky]

First teaser trailer:

[Aaron1933]

I'm very excited for this. Hot Rod is one of the funniest comedies I've ever seen, and it really doesn't hurt that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the script and Richard Ayoade is one of the leads.

[AstroChicken]

I like that the teaser doesn't even hint that there are fucking aliens in this movie.

[Harry B]

Where have I seen that 'look at me, now look at him, no look at me but listen to him and look at me, etc..' bit before?

[misscritta]

I just yelled "IT'S MOSS!" at the top of my lungs. So glad everyone else is gone for the day.

[BillBrasky]

The movie is now just called "The Watch" (because of the Trayvon Martin shooting), and here's the red-band trailer:

[Gluehead]

I thought this was going to be PG-13 so it's definitely a surprise to see how filthy it is. I've really grown to dislike red band trailers though and this one's no exception, instead of using the lack of censorship in a creative way they just cram in as much swearing and gross out talk as possible in two minutes and it's overkill. It doesn't help that the tired riffing about condoms and cum is more obnoxious than funny and feels like ideas Rogen & Goldberg tossed in while punching up a script that's probably had many screenwriter's hands on it.

I hope it's good though! Akiva's directing, there's a big role for Richard Ayoade and it's nice seeing Vince Vaughn looking thin and funny again. The elements are there for a great comedy to be made.

[BillBrasky]

[slothborn]

.

[BillBrasky]

Here's the final trailer for this that's running in theaters now (saw it yesterday in front of Spider-Man):

[J.B.]

The Chicago bus ads make Richard Ayoade look like a Puerto Rican Adrian Grenier.

[BillBrasky]

This was better than the trailers/ads make it look, and better than word of mouth would indicate. It starts off pretty funny, with Stiller, Vaughn, and Hill all in fine form, and the early scenes where they are all meeting and getting to know each other are full of the kind of improv scenes that they do really well. Ayoade contributes his fair share of funny bits too.

The second half of the movie becomes more of an action-comedy, kind of like "Ghostbusters", and the comedy starts to take a back seat to the special effects, which are actually pretty impressive for what I assume was a fairly low budget movie. This isn't to say the movie becomes bad, it's short enough that it doesn't really ever become boring and the aliens look pretty cool.

There are still some indications that there was a lot of post-production tinkering going on with this movie though. Erinn Hayes from "Childrens' Hospital" plays Vaughn's wife in the movie, and she is in it for about three seconds in one scene at the end. Considering there's an entire subplot concerning Vaughn worrying about his teenage daughter and the guys she's dating, it seems weird that his wife is never even glimpsed in the movie up until this point (and she's played by a fairly well-established actress, so I'm sure she must have had more scenes that were cut). Funny things that were in the ads, like Hill asking the twins if when one has an orgasm, whether the other one feels it- nowhere to be seen in the actual movie. The scene where they are all talking about the green goo and comparing it to cum- they cut the part where Hill goes "Hey guys, stop talking about cum and come here for a second", which I thought actually made the whole thing even funnier, because it points out the ridiculousness of how they were saying "cum" about 50 times right before that. Without Hill's line, the whole scene falls flat.

There are still some funny surprises in the movie though. There's a

Spoiler:  

Lonely Island-related cameo

that is very funny. Will Forte is funny as he usually is in his small role. There are some plot elements in the movie where you can definitely tell that Seth Rogen came in and rewrote the script (mainly the parts where everyone's talking about their genitals every 15 minutes). All in all, it's not a total success, but it's not a disaster on the order of "Envy" or anything like that either.