Central Intelligence (2016) * * *

Directed by:  Rawson Marshall Thurber

Starring:  Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jason Bateman, Amy Ryan, Aaron Paul, Danielle Nicolet

Central Intelligence meets your expectations and then in some cases surpasses them.    What would seem to be a run-of-the-mill buddy movie has some nice touches.    Like the muscular CIA agent still haunted by being bullied in high school and still thinks Sixteen Candles is the best movie ever.    Or a plot we kind of actually care about.  And it's consistently high energy.  The movie is goofy, yes, but it's a good time.  

The comedy teams tall, muscular Dwayne Johnson with the diminutive Kevin Hart and they make a natural comic duo with good chemistry.   Johnson is the CIA agent Bob Stone, the fat kid bullied in high school who has become, well, Dwayne Johnson.     Bob changed his name from Weirdicht and no one dares bully him unless he wants body parts bent in ways God did not intend.   Hart is Calvin Joyner, the most popular student in high school, who actually took time to help Bob when Bob was a victim of a particularly nasty prank during an assembly. 

Bob meets up with Calvin for drinks.  Calvin is stuck in a rut as a mid-level accountant and married to his high school sweetheart Maggie (Nicolet).   High school was the apex of his life to date, but soon finds himself unwittingly helping Bob avoid capture from his fellow CIA agents.   Bob may be insane, rogue, or trying to stop a bad guy from doing something very bad with the world's satellites.  It depends on who you hear it from.  In a funny twist, it is Bob who hero worships Calvin despite Calvin's ordinariness and is still a geek at heart.   

We get our share of fistfights, shootouts, and things blowing up, but since we like Calvin and Bob so much we go along for the ride.   Johnson and Hart take a movie that could have been formulaic, shake it up, and turn it into energetic fun.  It takes surgery to remove the grins from their faces.  Jason Bateman is also on hand as Trevor, the guy who bullied Bob in high school and still likes to bully him now.     The payoff doesn't quite happen as expected right away.    This adds a dimension to Bob other than just a confident killing machine.  We see the bullied kid still struggling to come to terms with his high school experience.   Of course, we know Trevor will get his comeuppance and he may not wake up for a few days afterwards.

I enjoyed Hart in previous movies in which the material didn't match his talent.  With the exception of The Wedding Ringer, which wasn't too bad, most of his movies have been subpar.  Central Intelligence actually gives him a decent script with laughs.   The humor and energy reminded me of the first two Lethal Weapon movies.  Johnson proves to be adept at comedy and kicking ass.  It is astounding how well he has transitioned to the big screen from his days as The Rock in WWE.  Hulk Hogan chose poor projects that did not stretch his abilities and protected his clean cut image with his fans.  Johnson is confident and with a strong screen presence that works in his favor more often than not.  He is a legitimate movie star.