Overboard (2018)

Directed by Rob Greenberg. Starring Eugenio Derbez, Anna Faris, Mel Rodriguez, Cecilia Suárez, Hannah Nordberg, Eva Longoria, Alyvia Alyn Lind, Payton Lepinski, John Hannah, Mariana Treviño, Fernando Luján, Swoosie Kurtz. [PG-13]

A rich, spoiled playboy (Derbez) on a yacht screws over the hired help (Faris), a single mom working two jobs to make ends meet, but the latter gets their revenge after the lazy jerk falls off the yacht and gets amnesia, and the blue-collar gal convinces the forgetful fool they’re married to each other and makes him “work off” the debt. Gender-swap remake of the 1987 Kurt Russell-Goldie Hawn rom-com, although since there’s a throwaway reference to “a blonde” amnesiac woman going through the same situation in the 80s, I guess it’s…an impossible-to-swallow sequel? That doesn’t make any sense, but nothing here does, starting with casting—since they’ve been compared to each other on numerous occasions, why wouldn’t Anna Faris be playing the Goldie Hawn role? After all, when it comes to high-concept situational comedy, casting against type almost never works, and I didn’t believe her as a working-class slob with three daughters, just like I didn’t believe his wimpy wisecracks coming from a spoon-fed snob. The script hits nearly all the same story beats, recycles a majority of the same jokes, and its attempts to get around the original plot holes and sexist attitudes (even by Reagan-era standards) create all new and bigger moral catastrophes and absurd lapses. The overall ineptness of the project fails to even satisfy demands when rehashing old scenes—just look at the finale, interrupted by a financial security wrinkle after the supposedly reformed jerk jumps overboard!Way to undercut the pre-programmed happy ending by making true love seem more like a reluctant convenience. The writer of the original film, Leslie Dixon, earns story and co-screenplay credits here. Derbez co-produced.

28/100