The Rock and Zac Efron star in explosive first trailer for Baywatch

Baywatch? Big screen spin-off? More Nineties nostalgia mined by “the man” for commercial gain? Well don’t you worry, it’s going to be OK, for the Baywatch trailer looks bloody good fun.

Silhouetted slow motion running aside, don’t expect that many similarities to the show. Much in the vein of the recent Jump Street reboots, it’s an action comedy which wades very much into lewd territory, cracking wise on themes from the original show but delivering a uniquely 21^st century take on the franchise. 

Musclebound hunk Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson hops into David Hasselhoff’s red shorts to play Mitch Buchannon, leader of the titular troupe team, while smaller musclebound hunk Zac ‘used to be in High School Musical but he’s actually cool now’ Efron plays the young ex-Olympic upstart who mixes things up by trying out for Baywatch.

And as you can see in the first teaser above, begrudgingly, the pair must eventually work together to thwart some criminal activity which threatens to engulf the beach.

Earlier this year, ShortList was lucky enough to visit the set down on Tybee beach in Savannah, Georgia (the film itself is set in Miami, Florida), navigating past 200 plus tanned and defined extras – gallingly not a bad looker among them – to hang out with The Rock himself, where the big man told us to expect something “R-rated, raunchy and not quite the show you remember”.

Expect cameos from Anderson and the Hoff, who also made trips to the set, but as yet there’s no word on whether we’ll get to hear that familiar, slow-mo-inducing, Student Union-approved theme song we practically grew up on.

Oh, go on then.

Baywatch is out in cinemas next summer. Keep your eyes peeled for our set visit soon