I’m not sure what the problem is. Kevin Hart is a very funny guy. He’s a great storyteller in his stand-up comedy routines. He’s highly entertaining on his talk show appearances. But when it comes to movies, while Hart is a box office draw and an incredible marketer, the results continue to be very disappointing. A lot has to do with the fact that the roles he’s taken have given him NOTHING to do.
He’s played the same wisecracking sidekick/partner in nearly all of his films: “Think Like a Man”, “Ride Along 1&2”, “Get Hard”, “Grudge Match”, “Top Five” (which was little more than a cameo) and even “The Wedding Ringer” (in which he received top billing). And in “Central Intelligence” we get more of the same – with similar, mediocre results.
Dwayne Johnson is also extremely talented. Thanks to some spot-on roles in both action and family films in recent years he’s been able to make people forget he once was a WWE star – and has become a legitimate movie star. But, to be honest, Johnson seems to play the same character in most of his movies, as well. He’s the good guy ladies man with the million-dollar smile and physique, who can also kick some serious butt.
And there’s no arguing that these guys are two of the hardest working celebrities in show business, with multiple projects going on at all times – that they are constantly promoting on their multiple platforms. But all that hard work and promotion goes to waste when it’s spent on something like “Central Intelligence”.
This spy action comedy isn’t the dullest movie of 2016 so far, only because the two leads keep you hoping throughout the course of the two hours that some big laughs are coming. It’s not crude or offensive, staying away from the current “adult” action comedy genre. The one word that best describes “Central Intelligence” is FLAT.
It’s clear from their first of many long, drawn-out present-day scenes (following a decent flashback set-up) that Johnson and Hart just don’t gel on screen. The large tough guy/short funny guy combo that likely sold this film in the pitch meeting fails miserably. These two are paired-up again in next year’s “Jumanji” reboot, which also stars Jack Black. I’m less than optimistic.
Another major problem here is the script, which is messy, overly complicated and highly based on coincidence. It takes nearly half the movie to get to the point where Bob (Johnson) officially reveals to former high school classmate and current accountant Calvin (Hart) that he’s in the CIA. But Bob may not really be who he says he is, and there are several third-party sources (in the form of paper-thin characters played by Amy Ryan, Jason Bateman and Aaron Paul) who interfere with Calvin and Bob’s plans to retrieve satellite codes to prevent a nuclear attack.
Johnson’s Bob is extremely annoying, regardless of whether you believe he’s actually an agent. Hart only has a couple of decent lines reacting to the situation he’s been placed in, and his shtick gets old quickly. “Central Intelligence” is packed with multiple scenes containing huge stretches of Johnson and Hart simply talking to each other which produce absolutely NO LAUGHS. It appears that much of the dialogue may have been ad-libbed, which would account for the lack of humor. The action scenes are mildly entertaining, but provide no suspense, and the many attempts at spoofing the spy genre are far from original.
A surprise cameo in the finale is welcome, but the scene itself is way too goofy. And this film, once again, proves my theory that when directors (in this case Rawson Marshall Thurber (“Dodgeball”, “We’re the Millers”) know they’ve made an unfunny comedy, they add bloopers to the closing credits in an attempt to have the audience to go home laughing about something. Here we get three minutes of Hart and Johnson slapping each other – but we feel the pain.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Central Intelligence” gets a D+.
Running Time: 107 min.