Three stars. Rated PG-13, and generously, for strong profanity, crude humor, fleeting nudity and considerable violence
By Derrick Bang
Personality can trump weak
material, and that’s certainly the case here.
Director/co-scripter Rawson
Marshall Thurber’s limp spy comedy is nothing to write home about, and the
so-called plot — fitfully fleshed out with Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen —
is pretty thin gruel, mostly serving as a flimsy template for sight gags and
one-liners.
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| An online data analysis request made by Bob (Dwayne Johnson, right) seems simple enough, but Calvin's (Kevin Hart) accounting savvy quickly alerts him to strange transaction details. In another few minutes, he'll know that he should have left well enough alone... |
But stars Dwayne Johnson and
Kevin Hart give the package far more oomph
than it deserves. They’re a great Mutt ’n’ Jeff pair, milking considerable
humor from their size differential — an entire 12 inches! — and disparate
personality quirks. The ever-smiling Johnson is sunshine and light, unflappably
carefree even under crazed circumstances; Hart, in turn, is fussy, frantic and
eternally put-upon. They play off each other quite well.
Which is a good thing, because
they certainly deliver more than the material deserves.
Central Intelligence opens with a cringe-inducing
prologue, set 20 years in the past, as high school superstar senior Calvin Joyner
— nicknamed The Golden Jet, for all his sports and academic accomplishments —
celebrates his graduation with a triumphant pep rally speech before the entire
senior class. The event becomes notorious when five bullies burst into the room
and toss the gentle but haplessly overweight Robbie Weirdicht, the uncoolest
kid in school, onto the gym floor. Butt-naked.
Via the magic of CGI
“sweetening,” Hart and Johnson play these younger versions of their characters
(the latter’s puffy features, grafted onto an extra’s body, being particularly
spooky).
Calvin resurrects some of poor
Robbie’s dignity with an act of generosity: a benevolent gesture destined to
have unexpected consequences.
Flash-forward to the present day.
Calvin (Hart), despite all those long-ago “most likely to succeed” accolades,
has become a drone accountant stuck on the middle rung of the corporate ladder,
garnering zero respect from colleagues (Ryan Hansen’s Steve being a particularly
obnoxious example). On the possible side, Calvin did marry high school
sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet), and they’re clearly made for each other.
Trouble is, Calvin’s career
dissatisfaction has magnified into marital tension.
Then, out of the blue, Calvin
gets a Facebook “friend request” from somebody named Bob Stone. Intimidated by
the Facebook culture into accepting, Calvin gets an immediate “let’s go for a
beer” offer from said fellow. To Calvin’s astonishment, it turns out that “Bob
Stone” (Johnson, now in all his buff glory) actually is a new and improved
Robbie. All he did, Bob explains, is work out six hours a day, every day, for
the past 20 years. Heck, he insists, anybody
could do that.
Superbly toned bod
notwithstanding, Bob still is hopeless uncool, decked out in a fanny pack, and
sporting a T-shirt with a My Little Pony
unicorn. Worse yet, his favorite film still is 16 Candles, and his clumsy efforts at “bro talk” generally land
with a thud.
And yes, watching the towering
Johnson wallow contentedly in geeky affectations is just as funny as it sounds.
Ah, but this stroll down high
school memory lane isn’t entirely serendipitous; Bob needs a favor. Could
Calvin employ his accounting smarts to analyze a bit of financial data? Well,
um, okay. The info is stored within a password-protected computer account, and
mere seconds after Calvin pulls up the data on his personal laptop, all hell
breaks loose.
Bob actually is a CIA agent
trying to find a clandestine cyber-terrorist — nicknamed the “Black Badger” — who
is trying to purchase stolen encryption codes for the U.S. spy satellite
system. At least, that’s Bob’s take
on events. CIA handler Pamela Harris (Amy Ryan), roaring onto the scene with
squadrons of gun-toting associates, insists that Bob is a rogue agent who
killed his previous partner in order to steal the aforementioned codes himself.
Either way, it’s all too much for
poor Calvin to process, let alone survive.
The resulting free-for-all makes
very little sense, serving solely as a vehicle for the many gun fights and
physical skirmishes that threaten Calvin’s very existence. We’re supposed to
believe that this somehow becomes a life-affirming experience, granting our
frustrated accountant the excitement that his career thus far has failed to
provide ... but that’s a tough sell.
So is Harris’ behavior, with her
ever-changing “explanations” for what’s actually going down. (No, really, truly going down, she keeps insisting.
Pinky-swear.) Ryan can’t begin to sell any of her character’s said-bookism
dialogue, and I’m not even sure the film’s scripters know where their plot is
going. Ryan is good at looking smug and superior, but that doesn’t help much.
That said, the stunt work and
action scenes are well choreographed, successfully accomplishing two goals: to
make Johnson’s Bob look impressively skilled, with Jackie Chan-like moves; and
to give Hart’s Calvin plenty of opportunities for terrified, duck-and-cover
squeals of protest. All of which are, indeed, reasonably amusing.
But not for almost two full
hours. A comedy of this nature wears thin at about the 95-minute mark, and
that’s definitely true here. Ultimately, the action scenes become same old/same
old.
Quieter moments are even less
successful. A sequence that finds Bob pretending to be a marital counselor is
quite forced; Maggie isn’t aware of the deception, and therefore can’t
understand why her husband is being so “weird” about their lunchtime therapy session.
The whole scenario devolves into badly contrived stupidity.
Climactic revelations don’t work,
since by then nobody really cares about the plot anyway. On the other hand, a
couple of late-entry supporting performers are a nice surprise, in brief
cameos.
Johnson continues to expand his
skills in light comedy, nimbly playing on the disconnect between cheerful
amiability and his can’t-help-but-be-intimidating physique. As with Vin Diesel
and Arnold Schwarzenegger (back in his prime), there’s a certain teddy-bear
huggability to these well-sculpted muscle men, but Johnson has the added
advantage of better line-reading skills.
Hart’s shtick will be familiar to
fans of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock, among others; there’s a sameness
to the forever aggrieved, agitated characters they’ve all played, usually in
response to exaggerated events beyond their control. Hart’s comic timing can’t
be faulted, but he doesn’t bring anything new to the stereotype. (In fairness,
that’s because this script doesn’t grant him much opportunity.)
Nicolet is little more than ornamental;
Tim Griffin fares better, as one of Harris’ CIA grunts. Ryan, as mentioned,
can’t do anything with her material.
The film’s profanity and violence
are a stretch for the PG-13 rating, likely awarded because few people seem to
get hit during any of the gratuitous fusillades. Ergo, Central Intelligence should please viewers desiring disposable
popcorn fluff, even if Johnson and Hart deserve better material.
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