“Baja,” an uninspired comedy about an RV, road trip and resort, tries hard to be madcap and magical, but the story has so many moving parts — and so little pizzazz — that things go south quickly.
The virginally inclined, risk-averse Bryan (Jake Thomas, solid) has a dead-end job at a sporting goods store when his adventurous parents assign him the task of driving their luxury RV to Cabo, so they can fly down there and avoid a round-trip. In a laboriously convenient setup, friends Todd, Jessica and Lisa join Bryan, because they happen to have things they need to do in Mexico, too.
We wait and hope for this little RV adventure to get into gear, but there’s no gas in the tank: The set-pieces are languidly staged and lack comic imagination. Writer-director Tony Vidal injects his screenplay with a disastrous subplot involving a dilapidated resort, a woman’s spiritual encounter with a deceased Tex-Mex singer, and a convoluted scheme to impersonate the late performer so the resort can be saved. It’s cringe-worthy.
“Baja” manages some good moments when Bryan is dealing with his parents or sparring with his randy friend Todd (Chris Brochu). But Vidal doesn’t sufficiently mine the buddy dynamic. He’s more interested in the romantic side of things, which would have been fine if his female characters weren’t so boring and one-dimensional.
One of the funniest scenes in the movie is when Bryan meets up with his parents in Cabo and summarizes the disasters of his trip. Too bad those calamitous events weren’t so amusing when we saw them happen earlier.
MOVIE REVIEW
“Baja”
Grade: D
Starring Jake Thomas, Chris Brochu. Directed by Tony Vidal.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, thematic material and language. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 46 minutes.
Bottom line: Seems too staged and lacks comic imagination
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