Delayed Reaction: Central Intelligence

The Pitch: Twins, but they aren't related, and with spy stuff.

It's hard to think of a movie genre as easy to get right as the buddy comedy. Take two people with different personas and put them on an adventure together. As long as the two actors mesh, the movie almost always works. That's the idea behind Central Intelligence. It isn't a particularly smart or complex movie. It's not clever and packed with can't miss jokes. Surely, you've seen everything in it a dozen times before. But, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart work well together and give it their all, so it works. Johnson isn't the greatest actor in the world, but no one shows up to work better than him. No matter what the role, he's always ready to give it everything he's got. In this case, it means being weird. Deadly and effective, but weird. It's easy to buy him as the kid everyone made fun of in school and he wears that damage well. Better than I expected. Kevin Hart has settled into being Kevin Hart in every role and he's good at it. A lot of people give actors grief for having no range. I say, if the role doesn't call for range and the character is one the actor can play well, then that's not a bad thing. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this film is the role reversals. Hart is playing the straight man. The only other time in the last few years he did that (Get Hard) was pretty awful. He was much better at it this time, partly because he had a better character to play off than Will Ferrell's spoiled rich man. Johnson could easily be the tough guy, action star. Instead, he's the strange one. He's the nerd and Hart is the jock. See how easy that is?

There's not much to say about the movie itself. It is what you think it is. Melissa McCarthy has a fun cameo. People like Jason Bateman and Aaron Paul show up for appropriate parts. It's a fun comedy.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend