Fast & Furious Presents:
Hobbs & Shaw – 4 out of 5
I’m a fan of the Fast & Furious franchise. Each film is filled with exciting action,
fantastic cast members, fun characters, and they are delivered in a slick
presentation and slathered in energetic soundtracks. Also, it’s an insanely lucrative and
successful franchise that is built on diverse casts, so that is impressive all
by itself. When I first heard they were
going to do a spinoff about Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw I was all-in because
they are two of the series’ best characters.
The trailer made the film look fun as hell so I definitely had to check
it out. Does it live up to the standards
this franchise has created? You bet it
does!
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| Universal Pictures They both are mad because the other won't pull their finger. |
In an effort to stop a deadly programmable virus called Snowflake
from falling into the wrong hands, MI6 agent Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby)
injects herself with the virus, leaving her safe but for only a limited amount
of time. However, Brixton Lore (Idris
Elba); a cybernetically enhanced agent of the terrorist organization Eteon, has
been assigned to retrieve the virus by any means necessary. In an effort to save the world, the CIA and
MI6 bring in Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Hattie’s brother Deckard Shaw
(Jason Statham) with a mission to bring her in and stop Lore…that is, if the
two can get along long enough to save the day.
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| Universal Pictures Put this walk in slo-mo and add "Why Can't We Be Friends?" to it. |
One thing that impresses me about the Fast & Furious
franchise is how it has evolved. Street
racing was its main emphasis during the early days and now it has become a
full-blown action franchise. Fast paced
driving action is still a main dish but the days of it centering on street
racing and street crime is long gone.
This film continues that evolution as this spinoff goes sci-fi and does
so seamlessly. Brixton Lore is, as the
character puts it, Black Superman in the film due to his enhancements he is
given. These enhancements mean superior
fighting skills, increased strength and agility and an almost invulnerable
body. This could have easily felt
out-of-place in a franchise that was built on fast cars but due to the series
constantly developing itself to be more of an action franchise this change
never felt odd or like a curveball. In
fact, it felt like the next step this series needed to remain fresh and it
opens the door to more sci-fi leaning stories in the future.
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| Universal Pictures Family is the franchise's running theme and this one manages to showcase family without ever having to constantly use the word. A rarity in the franchise. |
This sci-fi-centric spinoff allowed for some new and varied
action to take place. The fast pace
vehicle-based action is still here and a whole lot of fun but having a supped up
bad guy allowed for some cool and very exciting hand-to-hand combat
sequences. And speaking of punches and
kicks, this film has some terrific fight choreography—especially in Vanessa
Kirby’s fight scenes. Add in some guns
and explosions and this movie doesn’t skimp on the popcorn action.
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| Universal Pictures "Alright boys...staring contest...to the death." |
The cast in this one is pretty fantastic. Hobbs and Shaw are already two really fun
characters in the franchise and both are played by terrifically charismatic
action stars. Additionally, Johnson and
Statham have a fantastic and amusingly antagonistoc chemistry that makes their
partnership pretty fun. Vanessa Kirby is
a great addition to the franchise as she is incredibly talented but is a legit
badass who hangs with the rest of crew without a problem. She has a fight scene with The Rock that was
just awesome-sauce. Idris Elba was just an
incredible antagonist. He had that right
balance of being tough and cocky without being annoyingly arrogant. Finally, the supporting players really helped
bring life to the rest of the tale. I
loved Cliff Curtis as Hobbs’ estranged brother and there were some fun cameos
that I did not expect to see. I won’t
say who they are but their moments were very entertaining and amusing.
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| Universal Pictures Is it too much to ask to have Idris Elba in every movie being made?!? |
I had a lot of fun with Hobbs & Shaw but there were two
drawbacks to the feature. The first one
is the story tries to have a romantic subplot between Hobbs and Hattie. This isn’t developed very well and it
ultimately goes nowhere but the hard part about was how they only really
explored it in a very specific way and that was putting Hattie and Hobbs into a
sexual suggestive situation during the action.
For example, there would be a fight and she’d wrap her legs around his
neck or she would straddle him while he was driving in a getaway. This is pretty much the only time they try to
develop a relationship and attraction between the two characters and it comes
off very lazy and extremely lame, in my opinion.
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| Universal Pictures It could have been worse, I guess. She could have had no fight scenes and only existed to be a damsel in distress and an object of lust. |
One element that was fun but also frustrating was the
animosity between Hobbs and Shaw. For
the most part, they are very amusing with their hatred of each other and that
forms into a great partnership but it too often transformed into tasteless
toxic masculinity. It’s fun when you
have Hobbs calling Shaw short or Shaw calling Hobbs a giant who sticks out like
a sore thumb but there were too many times where they just insulted each
other’s dick sizes. When their arguments
became dick measuring contests the exchanges felt lazy and the fun was no
longer there. We live in a world of
toxic masculinity, I was hoping their animosity would have been a little more
lighthearted and silly rather than watching a frat boy-esque argument that you
can see too often in daily life.
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| Universal Pictures Fun Fact: I felt like I was a hundred pounds fatter looking at The Rock for two hours. |
Hobbs & Shaw is a great first spinoff to the Fast &
Furious franchise. The action is
exciting, the cast is fantastic and the story does a great job of standing out
but also feeling like it belongs with the series it budded off from. It has some minor drawbacks but that didn’t
stop me from having a good time with this one.
