Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart serve up the laughs in Central Intelligence

Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line

We’ve been seeing the previews for months now with an overweight Dwayne Johnson dancing in the shower to En Vogue’s “My Loving (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” and his transformation into the Johnson we know and love. And now we finally get to see the how and why of that transformation as Central Intelligence finally hits the big screen.

The story centers on two high schoolers, the misfit Robbie Weirdich (Johnson) and class president most likely to succeed Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart). As Robbie is humiliated in front of the entire senior class at high school, Calvin is the only person to show him any sympathy as he comes to Robbie’s aid with his letterman’s jacket. Years later, Calvin is an accountant (not exactly a success in his book) and married to his high school sweetheart (so at least he scored there). Out of the blue, he gets a Facebook friend request from a Bob Stone who it turns out is Robbie, hoping to hook up with his one friend from school before their reunion.

Calvin barely remembers Robbie and he would never recognize the massive tower of muscle he meets at a local bar as “Fat Robbie.” The two reminisce but a brawl in the bar forces Bob to reveal to Calvin that he’s in the CIA. Bob then asks Calvin is he can help him with some accounting, but what he finds is not bank accounts but an online auction site. Bob just needed Calvin’s expertise to break into the site to obtain a specific code that would tell them where an illegal arms deal was taking place. For his involvement, Calvin suddenly finds himself a part of the mission and involved in CIA intrigue, never knowing if Bob is actually an agent or a rogue spy about to commit treason.

A comedy like Central Intelligence lives or dies on the chemistry of its leads and Johnson and Hart have chemistry in spades. Johnson perfectly embodies the nerd seemingly stuck in the early 90s with his love of the music of the era and his absurd unicorn T-shirt (because ‘corns are the most lethal animal on the planet!). He’s so good that you never know if Bob is really that off-kilter or if he’s just playing the part to lure Calvin in (and Calvin thinks Bob is just as weird as the rest of us). Hart does what he does best, giving us his patented nervous energy and short fuse (no pun intended), but also allowing the audience to experience the situation with him, because we are just as unsure of the situation as he is. Together, the actors make for a great buddy team and give us a lot of big laughs.

In fact, their chemistry is so good that it almost makes us forget how utterly absurd the plot is. If you stop to think about it after getting all the laughs out of your system, it really doesn’t make a lick of sense. Without going into any spoilery details, a simple request for assistance would have prevented most of the film from ever happening (and the CIA doesn’t have anyone capable of breaking into a secure website? They’re probably reading this as I type it!). So, logic be damned, just sit back and laugh your ass off. And stick around for the bloopers right at the end of the movie.

Central Intelligence has a running time of 1 hour 47 minutes and is rated PG-13 for crude and suggestive humor, some nudity, action violence and brief strong language.