The Watch

The Watch is an action comedy with a science-fiction premise, set in the quiet Ohio suburb of Glenview. Four neighbours with uneventful lives form a neighbourhood watch group, though for most of them it serves mainly as a weekly excuse to get away from work, family and routine. Their patrols deal with ordinary local nuisances until they stumble onto something far larger: their town has been infiltrated by aliens passing as ordinary residents. The four men end up as the unlikely last line of defence for their neighbourhood and, potentially, the planet. Ben Stiller plays Evan, the group's organiser, with Vince Vaughn as Bob, Jonah Hill as Franklin and Richard Ayoade as Jamarcus. Rosemarie DeWitt and Erinn Hayes appear in supporting roles.

Akiva Schaffer directed, working from a screenplay by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Jared Stern, with Shawn Levy producing. It was Schaffer's second feature as director, following Hot Rod in 2007, and it sits between that film and the later comedies An SNL Valentine, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers and The Naked Gun (2025). The production was made for a budget of 68 million US dollars and took in roughly the same amount worldwide.

Audience response has been middling rather than enthusiastic: 5.7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 138,000 votes and 5.6 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 2,500 votes. A film critics' rating of 4.1 out of 10, based on 165 reviews, places critical opinion below even those moderate audience scores.