Film

Central Intelligence

Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart trade insults and body-slam their way through a spy plot that exists mostly as an excuse for the two of them to be funny at each other. It's big, dumb, likeable fun — a former nerd gets dragged into a conspiracy by the muscle-bound classmate who used to be bullied. Low stakes, high charm, zero pretension.

TMDb rating6.4

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Rush Hour1998

The template for exactly this kind of thing: two wildly mismatched leads, a plot nobody remembers, chemistry that carries the whole picture. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker at their most effortless.

But The action is dated and the culture-clash jokes haven't all aged gracefully.

Rush Hour poster

21 Jump Street2012

Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill send up buddy-cop nonsense with genuine wit and surprising heart, and the fake-out plotting is genuinely clever underneath the dumb jokes.

But Its self-aware, meta sense of humour is a different flavour of funny than Central Intelligence's straighter comedy.

21 Jump Street poster

Spy2015

Melissa McCarthy proves the desk-jockey-turned-field-agent gag can be both properly funny and a legitimately well-built spy caper, with Jason Statham stealing every scene he's in.

But McCarthy's comedy leans more filthy and improvisational than Hart and Johnson's back-and-forth.

Spy poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

North by Northwest1959

Same premise stripped to its bones: a mild everyman yanked into international espionage by forces bigger than him. This is where that story got its shape, decades before it got jokes.

Hitchcock's masterpiece about an ordinary man mistaken for a spy and swept into a conspiracy he can't control — witty, tense, and endlessly inventive, with Cary Grant's dry charm doing what Kevin Hart's panic does here.

But Black and white, sixty-plus years old, and its pleasures are elegance and suspense rather than gags and muscle.

North by Northwest poster
More like this (8)

The Other Guys2010

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as the department's most useless detectives, stumbling into a real conspiracy. Big laughs, a surprisingly sharp finance-crime plot, and Ferrell doing controlled chaos brilliantly.

But Ferrell's absurdist streak is broader and weirder than the more grounded goofiness here.

The Other Guys poster

Kingsman: The Secret Service2015

A scrappy underdog gets pulled into a slick, ultraviolent spy world — glossy, ridiculous, and self-aware about every Bond cliché it's simultaneously mocking and adoring.

But The violence is far bloodier and the tone nastier than anything in Central Intelligence.

Kingsman: The Secret Service poster

True Lies1994

Arnold Schwarzenegger's secret double life as a superspy gets uncovered by his own family in this gloriously oversized action comedy that basically invented the modern template.

But It's a bigger, meaner, more overtly '90s action movie with sharper edges than this one.

True Lies poster

Get Smart2008

Steve Carell as an eager desk analyst thrown into field work, paired with Anne Hathaway's ice-cool professional — gentler, sillier, and unexpectedly sweet-natured.

But It's a softer, more family-friendly comedy with less of an edge.

Get Smart poster

Ride Along2014no page yet

Kevin Hart again, this time paired with Ice Cube as a rookie desperate to prove himself to his tough future brother-in-law cop. Same rapid-fire Hart energy, different partner.

But It's a more conventional buddy-cop comedy with fewer surprises and lower ambitions.

Tag2018no page yet

An ensemble of grown men take a childhood game of tag absurdly, elaborately seriously. Similar spirit of overgrown-kid chaos, with a terrific comic cast having a blast.

But There's no espionage plot here at all — just pure, silly, low-stakes commitment to a bit.

Archer2009

Takes the same fantasy — ordinary office life colliding with spy-movie absurdity — and pushes it into a completely different format and tone, animated and merciless rather than warm-hearted.

An animated spy comedy about a preening, incompetent secret agent and the equally chaotic agency around him — filthy, fast, and quotable in a way that rewards rewatching.

But Adult animation with a much more cynical, sex-and-drink-soaked sensibility than a studio buddy comedy.

Archer poster

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind2002no page yet

Same core idea — an unassuming public persona hiding a secret life of violence and espionage — played completely straight-faced instead of for laughs, forcing you to ask whether any of it is actually true.

George Clooney's directing debut tells the (possibly true, possibly delusional) story of a game-show host who claimed to be a CIA assassin between tapings — a strange, stylish, genuinely unsettling double-life story.

But Much darker and more ambiguous than Central Intelligence; it's a film about identity and self-deception, not a hangout comedy.

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