<em>'Heads of State'</em> holds positives and negatives, for me. For the opening half of the movie, I was not feeling it. It just all felt so plain, stale and quite grating, to be honest. To my surprise, though, it actually improved as it went on. By the end, I think it actually won me over. One element that was keeping my interest, even amongst the aforementioned slow initial chunk, was the cast. I like Idris Elba, I like John Cena. Therefore, I had just enough in me to keep my eyes on the screen. Their banter is a bit forced, but does become effective eventually. Priyanka Chopra is pretty good, plenty of satisfactory action from her; that recap edit is amusingly done, to be fair. Jack Quaid's bit is fun, while Paddy Considine, Stephen Root and Carla Gugino are decent actors to compensate for otherwise quite lame characters. If not for those named, I'd be rating this a lot lower. Still, there are some strong moments and cool shots in there, like the apartment staircase and the lost tooth moment. Annoyingly, there is a fair amount wrong too; for example, the special effects are absolutely not good. All things considered, by the narrowest of margins, I did find this to be passable action fare. It really ought to have been better, though.

This is really dumb, but that does not make it less entertaining. Cena plays the worst and dumbest version of himself, and it works incredibly well in this deeply silly movie. If it has a deeper message it is completely lost in the fluff, but the movie is absolutely carried by the dynamic between John's and Idris' characters, as two chiefs of state on a whacky adventure together. This is silly-octane, without a semblance of reality anywhere to be seen, but it is fun. Not profound, not important, but fun.