My Review of "Central Intelligence"

Central Intelligence is a comedy that came out back in 2016. I watched this movie when it first came out and I came out of it underwhelmed. There was something that I just couldn't grasp onto that bored me about this movie when I first saw it. Watching it now, I think it was just that I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I saw it.

The movie starts off with the introduction of of Robbie Weirdicht. He's like many of us when we were in high school, socially awkward and very naive. Being overweight and socially inept he often got bullied. On one of the last nights of high school a bunch of bullies kidnap him while he's in the shower and throw him into an auditorium celebrating our other main character Calvin.

Of course everyone being an adolescent starts laughing at Robbie. Everyone except for Calvin, instead Calvin tries takes his jacket off to help Robbie escape the embarrassing moment. It's supposed to be Calvin's best day versus Robbie's worst day in high school.

Decades later Calvin is working a regular accounting job and gets reunited by Robbie who is now known as Bob. He's not unrecognizable as he's put on a ton of muscle and looks like a superman. Bob now works for the CIA as some sort of superspy. Now he needs Calvin's help to solve a case that he's been trying to figure out.

While all this is happening Calvin is having somewhat of an existential crisis. The high school reunion is coming up and he feels as if he had peaked in high school. Back in the day he was voted "most likely to succeed" and he feels that he should have made more of his life. This is causing a rift between he and his wife Maggie. They're trying to work things through.

This movie could have went straight up with these storylines but instead they go on some wild tangents that are pretty entertaining. This movie was intentionally made not to make any sense. They're well aware of what this movie is and they're having fun with it. A lot of Bob's antics are quite funny but you really have to be in the right frame of mind to get it.

Those wild antics are perfectly offset with the straight man act of Calvin. It's all perfectly cast as the duo work quite well together. Some of the scenes are very cleverly written. They play upon Calvin's naivety and inexperience to the high octane action that's going on. In contrast, they go even more ridiculous with some of Bob's impossibly cool fight scenes.

I like that they never really lose the fact that there is a marriage crisis between Maggie and Calvin. This gets played in the movie quite well but not too often to overshadow what the main point of the movie is.

There are also some clever in jokes that are sprinkled throughout the movie. They reference movies, and play upon the casts' previous work in other TV shows and movies. You kind of have to be really into pop culture to get everything that they're swinging at us but there's a ton of references. At times you have to be quite quick to understand what's exactly happening.

Overall, this was a pretty fun movie. I was surprised that I didn't like this movie when I first saw it. Watching it again years later I totally get it and I'm glad I gave it another chance. It's something I wouldn't mind seeing again because there are so many references in there I might catch another one if I view it again. This is by no means a classic movie but it is a very fun watch. I have to give this one a 6.5 out of 10. Worthy of checking out.