Movie Title: Central
Intelligence
Grade: B
Rating: PG-13,
1 hour 54 minutes
In a Nutshell: “Saving the world takes a little Hart and a
big Johnson…” The movie tag line is as
racy as a lot of the other lines in the movie, but you can’t deny the great
chemistry Kevin Hart and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have together in this action
buddy comedy.
Uplifting theme:
- #Blessed
- Overcoming
bullies in your life, whatever or whoever they are.
- Be the
hero of your own story.
- “In
life, the most important thing you can be is yourself.” – Bob Stone
Things I liked:
- It’s
so fun seeing Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart as high school students. The impressive CGI makes them look young
and morphs Dwayne Johnson’s face onto another body. We saw similar effects with Tony Stark
in the latest Avenger movie, “Captain America: Civil War.”
- Funny
fight scene in Calvin’s office.
- I am a
geek who makes random movie references in conversations, so I got a kick
out of the shout-outs to “Sixteen Candles”, “Good Fellas”, “Barber Shop”, “Twilight”, and “Road
House.”
- From
the trailers, I had no idea that Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, The Office’s
Amy Ryan, and funnyman Jason Bateman were in the film. Another fun surprise was Mellissa
McCarthy!
- Fanny
packs make so much sense, right?
- I
always enjoy funny outtakes at the end of movies. I thought the joke about “The Rock” being
a dumb name was hilarious. Dwayne
Johnson, apparently, thought so too.
- I
really enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t completely confident about who the
good guys and bad guys were during most of the movie.
- Director Rawson Marshall Thurber had a challenge with framing to fit both lead actors in the same shot because of their height difference. Nice job. By the way, Thurber brought us other raunchy comedies such as "We Are The Millers" and "Dodge Ball."
- It's refreshing to see the two lead actors switch comedic roles. We're not used to seeing Hart as the straight man and Johnson as the funny man.
- It's set up perfectly for a sequel. Get your unicorn shirts ready.
Things I didn’t like:
- LOTS of crude jokes about farts, porn, and body parts.
- The
plot isn’t exactly original, but it still worked…enough.
- Some
racist jokes.
Funny lines:
- “You’re
like a chocolate Google.” – Bob Stone (Dwayne Johnson)
- “You
are Jason Bourne in shorts!” – Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart)
- “What
did you do? One thing? Tell me!” –
Calvin
“I worked out 6 hours a day for 20
years straight.” – Bob
- “You
look like a black Will Smith or something.” – Bob
“Oh, OK. I don’t know if that’s
racist, but I’ll take it as a compliment.” – Calvin
- “I got a plan. It might get us both killed, but if it works, it’ll be a totally boss story. Cool?” – Bob
- "No! Not cool!" - Calvin
- “I’m
not in.” – Calvin
“But I think you are.” – Bob
“But I’m not.” – Calvin
“It might be a perception vs.
reality thing happening right now.” – Bob
- “Well,
there’s no coming back from that.” – Principal Kent (Phil Reeves)
- “Black
people don’t go to therapy. They go
to barbershops to talk about their problems. And then they watch “Barbershop.” -
Calvin
- “You’re
the power couple. I mean, you’re
like Taylor Swift and whoever she’s dating right now.” – Bob
- “Is
that from the Twilight movies?” – Calvin
- “Take
my gun, Jet. We may have to kill
some people.” – Bob
- “Are
you OK? You kind of sound like Ray
Liotta at the end of Good Fellas.” – Maggie (Danielle Nicolet)
Ha ha. That’s so funny. That’s such a good reference.” - Calvin
Did you notice?
- Bob
Stone likes cinnamon pancakes and unicorns on his Facebook profile? Bob said “Oh yeah, I’m big time into
corns. They’re so magical.”
- The
centaur mascot at the high school assembly?
Tips for
parents:
- You
will see the complete naked back side of a fat kid when Bob was in high
school and then again as an adult…this time it’s really Dwayne Johnson’s
posterior.
- High
school bullying is depicted in the first 5 minutes of the film. In the
next 5 minutes there is sexual harassment depicted in the work place.
- Kevin
Hart flips the bird at someone.
- Lots
of profanity, including 1 F-bomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment