CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE – The Review

The pairing of Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson creates nice chemistry in CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE. It’s too bad that they’re adrift in a lackluster buddy comedy that starts out well but is a distinct let-down for those expecting more.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE opens with a High School prologue set in 1996 with Johnson as Bob Weirdick, a bullied fat kid dragged out of the shower and thrown onto the gym floor during an assembly. Class president Calvin “The Golden Jet” Joyner (Hart) takes pity and hands Bob his letter jacket to cover his nakedness. Jump to 20 years later and Bob (who has changed his last name to Stone) is now a muscular CIA agent returning home for his high school reunion. He connects with Calvin, now a married but childless accountant, on Facebook and recruits him to hack into some security codes. Calvin soon finds himself in the middle of a wacky world of espionage, shoot-outs, and double-crosses.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE begins promisingly. The sight of Johnson’s young mug CGI’d on an obese body singing in the shower is amusing enough, (though the bullying he endures is more sad than funny).  When we first meet the adult Bob, he’s played by Johnson against type as a goofy, eager-to-please flake who is way into unicorns. Hart takes the straight guy role and it’s a fun dynamic for a while with Johnson’s comedic chops really standing out in in these scenes.  Once its established that Bob Is CIA, those roles reverse and CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE becomes more conventional but much less interesting. The pair spend the rest of the film bickering and squabbling non-stop as the tiresome plot about security encryption codes and a CIA mole known as ‘The Black Badger” plays out.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber, who has shown that with better scripts (WE’RE THE MILLERS, DODGEBALL AN UNDERDOG STORY), that he knows how to keep things flowing, intersperses car chases, shoot-outs and back-flipping pratfalls but it all grows tiresome quickly. Thurber keeps the violence mild, and despite an arsenal of weapons used and many panes of glass being smashed, few people actually get hurt (except the guy who gets his throat torn out in a humorous homage to ROADHOUSE). Jason Bateman, in ace snark mode, shines in one scene as Bob’s now-grown High School tormentor while Amy Ryan as a CIA superior is given little do besides point her gun and bark orders. Even a surprise cameo near the end (by an actress whose name rhymes with Bellissa BcCarthy) fails to liven things up. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE could have used more humor and less action, and perhaps an edgier satirical approach. Instead, it winds up indulging in some of the same buddy-cop clichés that it tries to lampoon. Despite the sparks that fly between the two leads, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE is interchangeable with dozens of other comedies that have come before it and is not recommended.

2 of 5 Stars