The action-packed buddy comedy Central Intelligence opens on Friday. The A-list cast includes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Aaron Paul, Amy Ryan, and Brett Azar as “Agent Wally.” The cast may not include the person who happens to be reading this article now, but the good people at Warner Bros. Entertainment have an easy fix for that. They’ve set up a clever promotional site called Central Intelligence Central IntelliGIF, where users can insert their own photos into eight different Central Intelligence-based GIFs so it looks like they are the ones reacting with alarm, amusement, or befuddlement at the antics of Johnson and Hart. It’s all very cute, an extension of those cardboard standees in movie theater lobbies where people can snap a photo with a Minion or Zac Efron or whatever is being promoted.
Visitors to the site are invited to snap photos of themselves in order to create the GIFs, but they can also choose photos they already have saved. And here is where the promotional site can become a force for evil in the universe. Users might well decide that what Central Intelligence needs is a cameo by, say, brutal Cambodian dictator Pol Pot.