CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE (2016) – My rating: 7.2/10

You know it’s summer when the movie fill ins start. Central Intelligence is one of them. While it’s not a bad movie, it’s not a great one either. It is funny but so unbelievable that it’s stupid. Grant you, it’s not predictable but that’s because it not believable. You wouldn’t be able to figure out the plot because there’s nothing realistic about it. The good news is the chemistry between Hart and Johnson is better than most comedy teams I’ve seen. They seem to have a genuine like for each other, which makes for a great comedy team. I found Central Intelligence to be entertaining even though it bordered on slap stick, which I’m not a fan of.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Bob Stone a CIA agent accused of murder and espionage. He also plays the younger version of himself, Robbie Weirdicht, an overweight high school student who is bullied with no friends. The makeup job that was done on The Rock was one of the most fantastic transformations I’ve ever seen. It’s so good, I’ve posted a picture of the Robbie Weirdicht character to show the result of the skill that went into the making of this character.  Kevin Hart plays Bob’s only best friend from HS, Calvin Joyner who turned out to be an accountant and married his high school sweetheart, Maggie Joyner (Danielle Nicolet).  Their journey is filled with lots of twist and turns including the FBI hunting them down.  Bob’s boss, FBI Agent Pamela Harris, (Amy Ryan) believes Bob has gone rogue and will stop at nothing to arrest him.  While Bob is in the fight of his life, he has recruited an unwilling Calvin to help him.  As usual, Kevin Hart is loud and over the top but teaming up with the Rock makes for a more tolerable and interesting partnership and comedy.  Again, Central Intelligence is by no means a great movie but if you have nothing else to do, it’s entertaining at best.

 

SAN ANDREAS (2015) – My rating: 8.5/10

San Andreas is another natural disaster movie for which we can do nothing about. The story revolves around the broken family of a helicopter rescue pilot, a Caltech Seismologist, a reporter, 2 youngsters visiting from England, a real estate developer and most of California and Nevada. Dr. Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti) and his his colleague Dr. Kim Park (Will Yun Lee) have discovered that their research has paid off when they are able to predict earthquakes. Hoover Dam was the first to be hit with a 7.1 earthquake, killing almost everyone in the area and destroying the entire Dam. Because of the quake, Raymond (Dwayne Johnson) was called in to assist in the rescue efforts, preventing him from accompanying his daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario) on a trip to San Francisco. Instead she hitched a flight with her wealthy step father to be, Daniel Riddick (Ioan Gruffudd).  Once they arrived in San Francisco, Blake met Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his little brother Ollie (Art Parkinson).  Another earthquake hit and they were all caught in the largest recorded earthquake of 9.6 in history .  The special effects were literally out of this world.  The story was better than most of these disaster movies and the acting was excellent with many stars gracing the screen.  Raymond spent his time trying to rescue his family but getting through all the debris and dodging the falling buildings is a whole other story.  San Andreas is non-stop action with the usual destruction and problems one would encounter during such a phenomenon.  Like most of these types of movies, a lot of the escape scenes were unbelievable but necessary to create the wow factor.  Dwayne Johnson’s character is likable, which made the movie likable.  San Andreas is good entertainment.  I saw it in 3D because of all the special effects — I think it was worth the extra charge.