This weekend the new adventure comedy Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle hits theaters, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan. Before Jumanji, fans of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart will want to check out their earlier team-up in Central Intelligence, a hilarious action comedy that hit theaters last year. It’s streaming and available now on home video.
Laugh out loud funny, Johnson plays Bob, a rogue CIA operative who was a bullied kid in school, assisted in an embarrassing moment back in school by the most popular, “most likely to succeed” kid, C.J., played by Kevin Hart. Hart doesn’t end up governor as predicted by his schoolmates, but settles into a typical office job as an accountant. As their 20th class reunion approaches, Bob, no longer the butt of jokes but a chiseled special ops machine, enlists C.J. for his accounting knowledge to help him flush out a traitor in the agency.
The CIA agent in charge, played by Amy Ryan, tries to convince C.J. that Bob isn’t who he claims to be–that he is in fact the traitor and his evaluations recently revealed a man on the edge, and he killed his partner. The hijinks commence once C.J. must decide whether “he’s in” or not, as an awkward and over-the-top Bob is completely embracing a partnership with someone he has grown to believe is the ultimate cool guy. Johnson and Hart are both at the top of their game here–Hart playing his rattled and jittery straight man routine and Johnson as the opposite of his image, uncomfortably sensitive, proud of his fanny pack, fanboying about unicorns and dropping Twilight references-–and he’s a big hugger.
