CHIPS (2017)

Greetings again from the darkness. In a Hollywood self-congratulatory world that considers sequels, reboots and remakes as creative projects; and imitation as the most sincere form of flattery Â… not to mention the safest hedged bet Â… it's not in the least surprising that we now have a film version of "CHiPs", a lightweight and popular TV show that ran from 1977 through 1983. What should be surprising is that a studio entrusted Dax Shepard with the ultimate slash role of Director/Writer/Producer/Actor for this contemporary version.

Of course, as with film versions of "21 Jump Street" and "Starsky and Hutch", the target audience isn't really those who watched the original TV series, but rather the group of big-spending millennials who seem to thrive on raunchy humor, while placing minimal value on a coherent or interesting story. Buddy cop films that blend tense drama, wise-cracking partners and eye-widening action have long been popular, with the jewel of the genre being Lethal Weapon. This latest entry does nothing to threaten the now 30 year reign of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

Dax Shepard stars in his own film as Jon Baker, now reinvented as a former X-games motorcycle champ who is attempting to save his long-fizzled marriage by becoming a cop. The rookie's partner is undercover FBI Agent Frank "Ponch" Poncherello played by Michael Pena. Each has their own personal issues: Jon is addicted to prescription painkillers, and Ponch struggles to control certain urges Â… and unfortunately for viewers, the two spend an inordinate amount of time discussing these issues.

The crime wave they are attempting to bust involves a corrupt cop. Seeing that Vincent D'Onofrio is in the cast immediately takes away any mystery about the bad guy's identity, but were there any doubt, the film exposes him in the first action sequence. After that comes the onslaught of verbal sparring, explosions, gunplay and one especially gory moment.

With Dax Shepard at the helm, we understand going in that the raunchy humor faucet will be fully open. Topics covered in one-liners, gags and recurring themes include: homophobia, sexting, masturbating, bowel movements, marriage therapy, d**k jokes, prescription drugs, paparazzi, and yoga pants. But seriously, how many "eating a**" jokes does one movie need? It's a topic that goes from uncomfortable to unnecessary pretty quickly.

Cars and bikes are vital here, though it seems that the motorcycle stunts could have been jazzed up a bit, and we certainly expected more cameos than the mandatory one near the end. The original series thrived on being 'tongue in cheek', and Mr. Shepard's version brings new meaning to the phrase. The opening credits state "The California Highway Patrol does not endorse this film. At all." It's an understandable stance.

Fmovies: I was looking forward to a movie being made for the hit TV show CHIPS for a long time, and fast forward to 2017...the wait is over, it's finally happened. It's here! CHIPS is a major motion picture! Oh, wait, major? How is anything coming from Dax anything major? This movie is a hollow, shallow, damn near UNWATCHABLE film to date. The best scenes of the movie are clearly in the trailer. The rest of the movie? Picture an entire train without any train tracks, and try to picture it trying to move. Doesn't work, eh? Neither does anything in this movie. The casting was bad, there is absolutely no story ( I'm not kidding, there is NOTHING to see here), and the film was incredibly boring. The hour and forty minute running time, it's going to feel like over 2 hours, trust me...this film was that boring. Unnecessary violence, unnecessary nudity, and unnecessary shootings...makes a very unnecessary movie to be made. If you're going to do it, do it right, dammit! I like Dax, but he was out of his league on this one...he's the same age as me, he was born in the 70's, he didn't live through it! If anyone is entitled to make a film after a beloved show, it should be done by someone who will be faithful to the adaption of the series, and who can argue with that? I actually got distracted after an hour of this atrocious waste of time, and was more entertained with the cheerful baby sitting in the seat with her parent next to me...it reminded me of the "Baby Food" episode from the TV show CHIPS, and actually made me sad of how bad we've steered off the Hollywood track. I appreciate and love classic TV, it should be respected, and if crap like this keeps slipping through the ass cracks of Hollywood itself, I'm done going to the show altogether. Thumbs down, Dax...next time, let's see if Kristen Bell is a little better with the writing and directing.

Comedian Dax Shepard has been acting on screen for years without making it big. He is perhaps best known as Kristen Bell's husband and being part of the main cast in drama series „Parenthood" which doesn't actually say a whole lot either.

But he is one of those actors who is willing to write, produce and even direct his own stuff if satisfying offers don't come his way. And „CHIPS" must be one of these pet projects, because he fills all four jobs mentioned above, sharing the screen with co-star Michael Peña.

There are actually bunch of other cool faces around in smaller roles, including – of course – Kristen Bell. But it's mostly about Shepard and Peña offering a buddy action comedy, so if you feel like you could like them, it's half a win for the movie already.

(Sadly, there's smaller number of famous friends on screen than in Shepard's previous projects, 2010's „Brother's Justice" and 2012's „Hit and Run". I guess Bradley Cooper and Tom Arnold felt that they have done enough for him and let him sink or swim alone now.)

Shepard is convincing in the sensitive/wise doofus role that he has chosen to himself, although his acting range seems limited in general.

So he has surrounded himself with some rock solid players, starting with Peña who has the coveted ability to make every movie a bit more better just by appearing there. In this regard, he's like a young- ish Latin version of Morgan Freeman, or something.

What is more important here: Peña can effortlessly do action, drama and comedy and there's need for all three here, Shepard couldn't hold the fort alone. And speaking of solid, we also have Vincent D'Onofrio who is every inch as imposing and magnetic as we have come to expect from this veteran thespian.

Based on the classic TV series of the same name (1977-83), it's about the adventures of two California Highway Patrol cops. But it's not the eighties anymore, so we get currently widespread type of raunchy mainstream comedy with some action.

If you want to measure the general style of the story and also the nastiness of the dialogue, you should check out the Red Band trailer, for example. It is not able to effectively share the quite enjoyable buddy comedy vibe „CHIPS" has during most of its running time, but you do get an idea if you would like to see some more of it.

The result is probably most enjoyable for the little teenage boy in all of us, with plenty of cursing, light violence and sex- or body- related jokes. If you can't catch their wave, you will probably be a little tired when the end comes.

I actually enjoyed most of this raunchy silliness although I felt that the ending felt a bit rushed and half-hearted.

It's easy to imagine that the success of „21 Jump Street" movies made pitching the project and gathering the money for „CHIPS" easier for Shepard & Co.

The projects are quite similar: old and loved TV series turned into modern American comedy, two likable guys in the middle of it all, verbally sparring, punching and shooting their way to glory.

CHIPS fmovies. Don't listen to the bad reviews. This movie was funny and wild; pure entertainment. Solid plot, great one-liners, excellent cast. The action scenes do not disappoint. This movie is thoroughly engaging from start to finish. It's just a comedy, it's not trying to win an award. Sit back, relax, and laugh.

Remember 21 Jump Street (2012)? Boy that was a fun movie. In many ways it was the perfect meta-commentary of the type of low-stakes, low-rent, low-brow crap Hollywood has been throwing at us recently like chimps in a mismanaged zoo. Literally anything and I mean anything with even a modicum of franchise potential is being made and remade and remade again these days. Thus when 21 Jump Street (based on a soapy cheap-looking TV show) reared its ugly head, I for one was clenching for an awful night at the cinema.

In many ways I was expecting something like Chips, i.e. an ill-conceived, aged and offensive grotesquery that at best is a watered down version of literally everything you've already seen. Remember all those completely forgetful Martin Lawrence clones that were hammered out one-by-one in the early 2000's? Me neither; how about those equally forgettable Kevin Hart movies? Okay, getting warmer. Well imagine that plus a big fat layer of tepid, lazy direction and you got the basic ingredients for what should honestly be renamed "Bullchips." Chips was directed, written and stars Dax Shepard who you may remember as the dude in Without a Paddle (2004) who was not Matthew Lillard or Seth Green. Here he plays Jon Baker, an over-the-hill Motocross athlete who, according to co-star Michael Pena, is "always two-beers too familiar." He's the typical California "dude" who's far too self-involved to notice he's a walking, talking stereotype. Or at least he is until the script asks him not to be.

Speaking of stereotypes, Michael Pena takes the place of the rambunctious Erik Estrada as Poncherello. In this universe he's an undercover FBI Agent searching for dirty cops, stolen loot and California dimes willing to give it up to the "Ponch". While it's easy to say Pena is the best part of this movie; saying that would be like complimenting the only cylinder firing on a broken motor.

Chips is based off the famed 1970's TV show which ran from 1977 until 1983. As you would expect from something that hasn't been figuratively opened since the 70's, this film is a festering gob of unrecognizable gunk. The police procedural portions of the film are rote and redundant while the duo-building moments of banter reek, of awkwardness and fragile male egoisms that haven't been funny since the Reagan Administration. Yet there they are, on the screen just begging audiences to laugh as Baker and Ponch discuss at length the preference and frequency of night-long a**-licking.

Aside from the film's boorish leads, Chips has a hard time communicating who or what we should actually care about. The audience is made aware of who our bad guys are long before our leads do, yet the film goes through so many airless, dimensionless minutes trying to coax our heroes in the right direction. Then the film goes into fruitless avenues to play out juvenile bits for the sake of little or no information pertinent to the story. Then, to add insult to injury they flip through a Highway Patrol database and randomly point to their bad guy because of nothing more than a mean look.

It gets worse. Shepard's Baker for example takes a lot in stride – His wife's obvious infidelity, his advanced age, Ponch's bathroom habits etc. He takes it all in stride with the exception of his work which he takes on with the vigor of a newly endowed meter maid. It's supposed to be a reoccurring joke yet because the movie is so shoddily edited there are so many, e

I was never a great fan of the 1970s show CHIPS. Most of my peers liked it a lot and I could see why because it was a fairly likable show featuring a couple of fairly likable characters played by a couple fairly likable actors. The downside was that like so much American television from the period it gets a little bit preachy , but apart from that it was a likable show featuring a couple of likable characters in the California Highway Patrol in a likable American TV show

"Hey Theo can you use any other adjectives apart from likable ? otherwise this comment will end up becoming unlikable"

Sorry to bring irony in to this comment but you can see the point I'm making. When I saw the trailer I thought "Why does Hollywood continually remake popular TV shows as crude comedies that have nothing in common with the source material ? " Well one reason might be cynical capitalism where they know they're fleecing the public. By the time bad word of mouth spreads the damage and the profits are done so nothing else matters

If you've seen the trailers you'll be scracting your head what this film has in common with the TV show CHIPS. It contains toilet humour , gay jokes and other near the knuckle humour . If nothing at least the trailer is accurate . Within the first ten minutes I'd lost count of the number of F and S words featured so much so I thought I was watching a Scorsese movie. On top of that the humour is dreadful featuring toilet humour , sexual jokes about someone's wife and ... well stuff that 15 year old boys would consider juvenile . Some people might enjoy this but I found it a genuinely unlikable film