Are you kidding me? I’m not helping you, you attacked somebody with a banana!

Central Intelligence

(2016)

(SPOILERS) Pretty much your average run-of-the-mill, crowd-pleasing buddy comedy, short on actual inspiration but pumped with star power. The precise plot of Central Intelligence may not have been done before, but if feels like it has (fat, bullied high school kid becomes super macho spy), and the gags follow suit. Nevertheless, the Rock and Kevin Hart (who seems in danger of becoming ubiquitous) have undoubted chemistry, and for the most part the conceit of Dwayne Johnson playing a very uncool teenager in a very cool man’s body goes a sufficient distance to make this not too aggravating, if never remotely in danger of becoming clever.

It’s more difficult to believe Hart’s Calvin Joyner was ever his school’s star athlete, since he only ever gives off class clown (the ever-present de-aging tech doesn’t sell it either – seriously, it seems you can’t watch a Hollywood movie at the moment without tripping over waxy younger versions of star faces). Johnson’s Bob Stone being goofily genuine and guileless one moment and suave and can-do the next doesn’t really play either, to be honest, except that the Rock’s charisma makes it travel.

There’s a lot here that doesn’t play, though, from Johnson’s high school fat suit, to pretending a rope is his Johnson, to his “celebratory” birthday suit appearance at the class reunion (exposing yourself in public is acceptable and even estimable if you’re the Rock, apparently). Still, the banter between Bob and Calvin has a likeable back and forth of cool/dork, switching places depending on the setting/activity. Bob wears unicorn t-shirts and loves John Hughes movies (“Then I realised high school was nothing like 16 Candles. And I’ll never be Molly Ringwald”) and exhibits disarming sincerity in response to the inevitable gang-of-thugs-in-a-bar scene (“That’s a lot of homophobia coming out of a very angry man. You need to get that looked at by a trained professional”).

The flipside of Calvin’s life having come to nothing very much (“If 18-year-old me could see me now, he’d think I was a total loser”), despite having married his high school sweetheart, seems to be remedied by joining the intelligence services and having a kid (if in doubt about what’s missing in your life, have a kid).

This is a less satisfying spy comedy than Spy, despite a very game Amy Ryan as Bob’s superior, hunting him down because she thinks he’s criminal the Black Badger, who is selling top secret satellite codes. Aaron Paul, as Bob’s believed-dead partner (of course, as soon as we see Paul in a flashback, we know he’s going to show up alive), proves yet again that he was so good as Jesse Pinkman because that’s how he plays every part (he even calls someone “Bitch” here). Jason Bateman appears as the older version of the guy who horribly bullied Bob, but the character is guilty of overkill. It would have been funnier if Trevor really had been a born-again Christian, rather than a chronically unrepentant bad guy begging to get punched. Bateman does improvise some funny lines though (“You’re still shorter than my cat” he tells Calvin).

I’m not sure Kevin Hart is destined to ever appear in a really great movie. He’s one of those comedians whose watchword are “That’ll do”. As such, Johnson walks off with the best moments (“How dare you!” he responds, when Bateman exclaims “Fuck Patrick Swayze!”) and scenes (posing as the marriage therapist of Calvin and Maggie – Danielle Nicolet – much to Calvin’s indignation; “This is not real” Calvin tells Maggie. “It is to me” she replies) There’s the occasional remark about CIA surveilling everything (Facebook, “Just pick up any phone in your house, They’re all bugged” invites Ryan with regard to Calvin’s job offer) and the suggestion that, implicitly, none of this is anything to worry about (the CIA are heroes, and the Calvin is welcomed by them with open arms, making his life all that much better). Central Intelligence also features a cameo from Melissa McCarthy, and made almost as much money globally as her vastly more expensive Ghostbusters. Together they suggest that, while the traditional star comedy isn’t dead, it has hit a bit of a rough patch.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

You guys sure like watermelon.

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses (2019)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps, if Martin Scorsese hadn’t been so opposed to the idea of Marvel movies constituting cinema, The Irishman would have been a better film. It’s a decent film, assuredly. A respectable film, definitely. But it’s very far from being classic. And a significant part of that is down to the usually assured director fumbling the execution. Or rather, the realisation. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills the ranks of revered critics have been taking so as to recite as one the mantra that you quickly get used to the de-aging effects so intrinsic to its telling – as Empire magazine put it, “you soon… fuggadaboutit” – but you don’t. There was no point during The Irishman that I was other than entirely, regrettably conscious that a 75-year-old man was playing the title character. Except when he was playing a 75-year-old man.

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

You can have it. Make the edits.

Little Women (2019)
(SPOILERS) It could be argued, given Little Women’s evergreen popularity, not least as a go-to text for Hollywood adaptations, that Greta Gerwig isn’t exactly stretching herself or giving us a better idea of the kind of directorial career she envisages. Hers is a likeable, intelligent, well-rendered sophomore picture. As such, the awards plaudits are probably no more or less deserving than for your average prestige period piece. Which is to say that Little Women is handsomely mounted and consummately performed (at least, by some of the cast), but it doesn’t absolutely feel like this umpteenth version of Louise May Alcott’s novel demanded to be told, even with the Gerwig’s innovations of experimentation with time frame and metatextual use of its author.

We need somebody to walk the clones.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)
(SPOILERS) Not so much the banality of evil as of taking pot-shots at easy targets, Taika Waititi’s typically insubstantial, broad-brush, sketch-comedy approach isn’t the best of fits for the formulation of this self-styled “anti-hate satire”. The issue isn’t so much that it’s inappropriate or insensitive to broach material of Nazi persecution of the Jews comedically as that the manner in which it has been done here is so obvious as to be redundant. Waititi said his inspiration for making the movie was partly the statistics on those Americans who had never heard of Auschwitz; Jojo Rabbit is as cack-handed a way of going about informing them as Life is Beautiful.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

This popularity of yours. Is there a trick to it?

The Two Popes (2019)
(SPOILERS) Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes joke, in which he dropped The Two Popes onto a list of the year’s films about paedophiles, rather preceded the picture’s Oscar prospects (three nominations), but also rather encapsulated the conversation currently synonymous with the forever tainted Roman Catholic church; it’s the first thing anyone thinks of. And let’s face it, Jonathan Pryce’s unamused response to the gag could have been similarly reserved for the fate of his respected but neglected film. More people will have heard Ricky’s joke than will surely ever see the movie. Which, aside from a couple of solid lead performances, probably isn’t such an omission.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

I'm reliable, I'm a very good listener, and I'm extremely funny.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I wrote my 23 to see in 2019, I speculated that James Cameron might be purposefully giving his hand-me-downs to lesser talents because he hubristically didn’t want anyone making a movie that was within a spit of the proficiency we’ve come to expect from him. Certainly, Robert Rodriguez and Tim Miller are leagues beneath Kathryn Bigelow, Jimbo’s former spouse and director of his Strange Days screenplay. Miller’s no slouch when it comes to action – which is what these movies are all about, let’s face it – but neither is he a craftsman, so all those reviews attesting that Terminator: Dark Fate is the best in the franchise since Terminator 2: Judgment Day may be right, but there’s a considerable gulf between the first sequel (which I’m not that big a fan of) and this retcon sequel to that sequel.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog