Kevin Hart has probably made the most movies of any well-known movie actor in the last 5 years and I heard the other day that his movies have grossed close to 1 billion dollars. I have noticed that all of his movies follow the same pattern. An average story, some physical humor and many attempts at verbal humor, some that fails and some that are only moderately funny. As a standup comedian Kevin Hart is one of the best to come out in many years, but as a comedic actor, he has to find better scripts than the mostly average ones he has found so far. The other problem if this keeps up is overexposure which can be the death of anyone’s acting career in Hollywood.

The other hard working actor in the movie “Central Intelligence” is Dwayne Johnson, “The Rock” and over the last 5 years, he has probably chosen his movie roles a little better than Kevin Hart. The good part of this movie includes some important statements about bullying, which is a huge problem in this country and has been getting worse over the years. From an outrageous bullying incident in 1996 involving Johnson’s character who was obese at the time, he later became not only a great physical specimen “because of his 6 hours of training for 20 years”, but also a CIA agent. The re-connection of Hart’s character and the Rock is through Facebook and very quickly they find themselves being chased around by CIA agents within a story that became rather convoluted and run of the mill. Some of the physical comedy was somewhat funny but not enough as were some of the lines and interaction between Hart and Johnson’s characters.

This movie is a very typical Kevin Hart movie and if you are not a big fan, you can miss this film.

I thought while watching this movie that the correct title should have been “Finding Dory’s Parents” because that is what this entire movie is about – A baby fish with short term memory who loses her parents as a child and then spends the rest of the movie trying to find them. “Finding Dory” is the sequel after 13 years to “Finding Nemo”. While this movie has a good solid story and excellent computer graphics, after 13 years I was expecting more than this just above average cartoon about a cute fish with big eyes who has short term memory. Ellen Degeneres reprises her role as Dory and like she did 13 years ago, did a very good job with her part. As I always do, I had to respect the outstanding computer graphics work in this movie as every moviegoer has to. Somewhere they should publish the number of man hours it takes to put a 2 hour animated cartoon together, then add the script and the planning that goes into a project that takes years to produce.

I thought this movie was very good but not great and I do recommend it.

I was reminded how great a movie “High Fidelity” is the other day on HBO. What is most amazing about this film is that both John Cusack and Jack Black peaked with this movie which came out in 2000 and never hit that high a note again. Jack Black has never been funnier, and Cusack has never been better in any acting role he has done. This movie has everything , top notch humor, romantic story and great drama all in one film. One of the things I liked about the 3 guys in the music store owned by John Cusack’s character was their intense interest, knowledge and devotion to the subject of music. Their condescending attitude towards all others who were not into music as much as they were was very unique and at times very funny. There was an ongoing debate about obscure music trivia between Jack Black who worked at the music store and his co-worker played by Todd Luiso that represent some of the best scenes in this entire movie. Jack Black’s singing at the end of the movie was both funny and great singing at the same time. Perhaps his best singular performance in the movie.

Cusack’s character is at odds with his personal life from the very beginning of this film and at times, he narrates the stories and failures he has had with the women he has been with and talks about the depression, anger, and angst he has experienced during his life all the way back to when he was a teenager. Cusack’s talking about all these bad previous dating experiences is because of his break-up with his current girlfriend played by Iben Hjejle and the movie starts out with her leaving him for another man. All of us can relate to the intense pain of relationships and this movie covers this subject very well and rel​ationship depression and angst is the central theme of the entire movie.

Lisa Bonet is also in this movie and her character has a short-term fling with Cusack’s character. It seems that High Fidelity could be the peak of her movie acting career as she was very believable in her role in this very high-quality film. Regardless, it’s been rare to see Bonet in any movies during the last 30 years.

If you are one of the rare people who have seen the movie “High Fidelity” you owe it to yourself to see it.