Central Intelligence

As much as I did like this movie, I think one of the best things to come out of it was the pairing of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart. I don’t know why they work so well together, but they do and this movie has made me excited for almost every movie I see them together in from here on out.

Central Intelligence follows the story of Calvin Joyner (played by Kevin Hart). In highschool, Calvin was the Golden Boy. He was the smartest kid in school, he was the Prom King, and he was the star athlete, which I find funny because it’s Kevin Hart and he’s really short but still, it’s a funny concept. Now Calvin is working as an accountant and he is bored with his life. One day though, he is visited

by an old acquaintance from high school who he did not expect. In high school, Robert Wheirdicht (played by Dwayne Johnson) was a fat loser who didn’t have any friends. But now he is Bob Stone and he’s basically The Rock. He’s incredibly muscular and attractive. The thing that I loved about Johnson’s character was that he’s still a nerd. Just because his character is now fit and an impressive specimen if I do say so myself, he still likes unicorns and really nerdy stuff.

Anyways, Bob and Calvin have a fun night but the next morning agents from the CIA knock on Calvin’s door asking where Bob is. Turns out he is a rogue agent with the CIA. Of course there are two sides to every story and Bob pushes Calvin into working with him to uncover a plot to buy state secrets. The two go on a buddy cop romp as Bob needs Calvin’s accounting skills to help him save the free world and clear his name.

Like I mentioned, whatever you think about this movie, you have to admit that it just makes you love Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. Both individually and as a team. I’ll start with Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart is doing his same old shtick in this movie. He’s the loud quirky short guy who is a bit of a wimp. If you’ve seen his standup, you know what he’s going to be bringing to the table and if you’ve seen it before, you know what you’re getting into and you either like it or you don’t. I can do Kevin Hart in small doses and luckily this is a good amount of him. He’s screaming, he’s hiding behind the bigger guy but trying to act tough, he’s done it all before.  

So it works really well to have him paired up with Dwayne Johnson. The juxtaposition of the two is really great first because of their size. But they also work personality-wise. Johnson is charismatic and smooth, Hart is wonky and awkward.

And when I say that Johnson is smooth, he is really smooth. It would be one thing if he was just a stereotypical jock who is just built like a tank, but he’s just charismatic in everything he does. His character works just like that too because he is that nerdy person. He totally owns the fact that he likes unicorns, he totally owns the fact that he wears a fanny pack. He just seems to be having fun with the character and even though Bob seems more like a cartoon character than an actual character, he’s a lot of fun. You’d think that Kevin Hart would be the goofy, obnoxious, wimp who is the animated one but somehow he’s more of the straight man while still being animated while Bob is more animated with his quirkiness and charisma. Again, the pairing of these two is just fantastic.

But then you delve into the story and things are probably not as ingenious as the pairing. The story is pretty straightforward. It’s a simple spy thriller plot so that we can get to the main attraction which is these two just being goofy together. Sure it has a little bit of intrigue and mystery to it. There is a little bit of the movie trying to put you off balance and question whether or not Bob is a good guy or a bad guy. Amy Ryan plays a fellow CIA agent who is tracking Bob down and Aaron Paul plays a pretty fun small role in the film. Jason Bateman plays the guy who was a bully to Bob in high school. So nothing is wrong with the cast. The movie is just a little bit predictable and formulaic. But something funny I noticed about this film pretty early was the fact that it actually had a distinct moral and a message. Most films have messages in them, that usually makes a comprehensive story. But Central Intelligence actually has the moment in the end where the main characters make a big speech and explain to everyone, including the audience what this experience has made them learn. That’s something that I feel used to happen a lot but hasn’t happened in recent films. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing because on one hand, it really kind of slaps you in the face and it feels a

little bit like its pandering to the audience. But at the same time, because Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson are such a good team, you actually get a little bit invested in their development emotionally and I don’t mean to lean into the jokes that were brought in during the trailers that this movie had a little bit of Hart (haha) but it does. This movie does have some heart to it that puts it a little bit over the threshold of a standard action comedy in my book.

I’ve seen other movies try to tug at the heart strings but it usually doesn’t work because of the lack of chemistry between the characters. But Johnson and Hart really nail it and it really shoves aside the other issues with the movie I have. Very similar to The Nice Guys, Central Intelligence falls a little bit above the average movie going experience. It’s not a movie that I think I’m going to go out and buy but it definitely is one I’d see again and probably would enjoy more the second time around.

I feel like I’ve been doing some really short reviews lately. The truth is, a lot of these movies I’ve been reviewing in the past few weeks are neither really good or really bad, they’re just kind of on the spectrum right in the middle. I am waiting for X-men: Apocalypse to come out of on Redbox so I can do a rewind/spoilers review on that film and in December the extended edition of Suicide Squad is going to be released. So if you’re wondering why these reviews have been so short, I just haven’t had a lot to write about. However, more is coming. Let’s start November off strong!

But what did you think of Central Intelligence? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for other films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I’ll leave you with this. Again I love these two together. I think they're a really good pair and I want to see them work together again. Here we come Jumanji! Enjoy!