Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
So, the best I can think of to explain this movie’s existence is this: Universal wanted a spin-off with Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, and asked longtime “Fast & Furious” franchise writer Chris Morgan to come up with ideas. What he did was, essentially, brainstorm a self-parody of what the franchise had become, and Universal was fine with it. Since the franchise has become one of Universal’s most profitable over the past two decades, it makes sense; it also makes me feel like the last two films in the main series- which come out in 2020 and 2021- should be the absolute last we see of this franchise, even if a sequel to this film is teased at the end of this lunacy.
Because it feels so much like a self-parody of its mother franchise, “Hobbs & Shaw” didn’t really entertain me the way one would hope coming from Morgan, his co-writer, Drew Pearce (“Iron Man 3), and director David Leitch (who helped develop the “John Wick” franchise). Johnson and Statham are certainly up to the task, as they try to make the buddy action comedy vibe of this film work as they go up against Idris Elba’s Brixton, but that part felt like a series of cliches rather than something coming genuinely from the characters. This is very by-the-numbers filmmaking, and it was pretty dull to watch.
Hobbs and Shaw are doing their own things in LA and London, respectively, but find themselves on the same trail- they are each looking for answers on a chemical weapon that an evil tech company- Eteon- is on the search for in its plans to bring upon the next evolution of man through genocide; this chemical, when released, will kill off the weakest of humanity, much like the Black Plague, although if you listen to Brixton speak, and think of Marvel’s Thanos, that would be completely understandable, as well. The prologue of the film has Brixton trying to get the chemical, and going up against an MI-6 agent (Hattie, played by Vanessa Kirby, who is the highlight of the movie), who injects herself with it before Brixton can get it. The countdown to when she dies, and the chemical gets released, begins, and the race to get it extracted begins. Hobbs and Shaw are brought in by the CIA to do that, with a wrinkle- Hattie is Shaw’s sister. Family will play an important role in how this all plays out.
I like Johnson and Statham as personalities, and their characters in the franchise are fun (and Elba is a great villain for them to play off of), but I just was bored watching “Hobbs & Shaw.” Once the car chases get started, it’s fun to watch the lunacy unfold as these chases defy the laws of physics to greater and greater degrees (this one’s practically science fiction), but the movie is such a factory of formula that “Hobbs & Shaw” has to bring in Ryan Reynolds as a CIA agent to really get some laughs working throughout the film…and the end credits. Other than he and Kirby- who handles herself in the action scenes brilliantly- this movie doesn’t have much going for it, unless you just want to watch Johnson and Statham walk through these roles for over two hours.
