Central Intelligence (2016) - It Is Intelligent!

★★★★☆

Nowadays, competent comedies like this are rare. They’re either too exaggerated and ridiculous to deliver laughs, or too corny and old fashioned to be enjoyable. ‘Central Intelligence’ however, manages to strike a good balance between silly setups that comedies usually have and sensible storytelling that comedies usually lack, to be the most decent comedy I’ve ever seen in years!

In fact, Dwayne Johnson has been in a lot of comedies as I remember, but has never been able to impress until he meets up with Kevin Hart this time around. They’re so great of an exhilarating match in the film that we’re generally willing to forgive the story that can’t be really happening as a matter of fact. The casting and very capable scriptwriters are the key success of it. Kevin Hart really steals the show. He’s I don’t know how many times better than Chris Rock when it comes to comedies. And when he’s going with Dwayne Johnson, it’s such a real blast! The body language he presents, the way he speaks, the lines he delivers are ingeniously funny. Together with Dwayne’s part serious part crazy way of working around things, the film’s pretty much of an exciting roller coaster ride experience where you have nothing to worry but be ready to get high!

The final speech Dwayne’s Bob Stone delivers is kind of wild and touching. Again, it brings up one thing that most of us today are struggling with so hard. That is, how to free yourself from your unpleasant shadows and bitter pasts, and move on to a new phase. Some find it easy but in fact their mind’s sort of stuck in the past. Some find it hard because they think they’re made of their pasts. Truth is, we never move on to anything new for real. We’re always the victims of our own karma. I said ‘victims’ because we never know for sure the consequences of what we do. We just do what we think is right. What you think is right could be very wrong to the other in the end, nevertheless!