Review of Central Intelligence (2016) by Howard B — 19 Oct 2017

Central Intelligence is a buddy comedy with small touches of the thriller and action genres. Dwayne Johnson plays an unusually interesting character in the bullied school kid who returns as an adult years later and all toughened up, but seemingly carrying childish behaviour and awkwardness with him.

As the espionage plot kicks in and it becomes unclear if he is who he claims to be, there is an interesting "is he" / "isn't he" thread which makes the second act of this film the most interesting and in which Johnson does some good work to keep it as believable as you could ask.

Ultimately the first act is as you've seen in the trailers already and the final act is rather by the numbers thriller genre stuff. There is not really any action to speak of and the director is never called upon to do much, so the whole affair is left feeling rather unspectacular which is also not helped by a few laughs that do fall flat.

Ultimately though, it is a good time passer and has it's heart very much in the right place with an almost cringingly nice and well meaning central message.