The mysterious case of Mr. Dax Shepard has always struck me as strange. At face value, he seems to have all the tools needed to be a constant leading man. He’s heavily involved in the latest classic reboot – ‘CHiPs’ so how does he do?
Why Dax should be a Hollywood lead
Shepard started out on MTV’s Punk’d and rose to considerable fame back in the early naughties. He’s got the action star looks and a weird off-beat personality. It seems odd that he wouldn’t be in more high profile roles. Maybe comes down to the fact that he seems to be a man that prefers being behind the camera over bring in front of it. Lately, he’s been trying his hand at directing like in his most recent effort ‘CHiPs’. Actually, he’s managed to write, star in and direct the cop-show reboot. If nothing else, it’s commendable just from the sheer amount of effort involved to pull off all three at the same time. It’s like trying to keep three plates spinning at the same time.
Unfortunately, if you were to listen closely while the movie was playing you’d probably hear the sounds of those plates smashing over and over again.
What’s CHiPs all about
Shepard himself is Jon Baker, a former world class stunt bike driver. Baker is forced to take a job as a highway patrolman after a string of nasty crashes destroyed his reputation. At the same time, he’s hoping to repair his marriage with his insane reformed groupie turned wife. Added layer of humour here is his wife being played by Shepard’s actual wife Kristen Bell. He becomes partners with rebel FBI agent Castillo. Together they try to take down a group of patrolmen who work part time as armed robbers.
Is the CHiPs remake any good?
There’s no point dressing it up. CHiPs is not a good movie. Not even close. I’d compare it to another remake of a beloved 70’s cop show – 2003’s Starsky and Hutch. While not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination it still at least kept to the more likeable aspects of the source material. Here, though? It’s just raunchy joke falling flat after another. The plot threads literally go nowhere. While the general idea behind the movie had some promise, with such awful lacklustre writing it never really got off the ground.
The film also hosts a star-studded cast and sees the likes of Ewan McGregor (Lumière), Sir Ian McKellen (Cogsworth) and Emma Thompson (Mrs Potts) portray the beloved characters from the original film. My biggest criticism is probably McGregor’s attempt at a French accent but that I can forgive! The villainous duo of brutish Gaston (Luke Evans) and his bumbling sidekick Le Fou (Josh Gad) are also two of the film’s most prominent characters and, in my opinion, stole the show on many occasions.
