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FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW
Director: David Leitch Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Helen Mirren, Eiza González, Eddie Marsan, Eliana Sua, Cliff Curtis, Lori Pelenise Tuisano MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:15 Release Date: 8/2/19 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 1, 2019 There's a certain futility in saying that Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is big, loud, and dumb, because those characteristics have become the major selling points of this franchise. Ever since the series abandoned the relatively low-key stories about street racers getting into other criminal activity (around the fourth one, if I recall correctly), the entries have seen the characters form a criminal enterprise and, somehow, follow that up by becoming crime-fighters, with connections to various known and secretive government organizations. None of it has made any sense, and the installments that were at least tolerable embraced the absurdity and did so with over-the-top action sequences that kept winking at the audience. "You know this is big, loud, and dumb," the filmmakers seemed be saying, "but would you have it any other way?" Here, we get the first official spin-off in the series (Some could argue that the third movie was one, too, except that the sequels made that entry part of the main story). It has nothing to do with the franchise's main characters, although one supposes that each of the eponymous characters here is either a central one already or, based on the fact that he's the co-lead in this movie, about to become one. They are, of course (The emphasis is for those who have been following these movies), Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). For those who haven't been following the series, the simple explanation is that Hobbs is a former agent for the Diplomatic Security Service who hunted and later teamed up with series' main characters. Meanwhile, Shaw is a former military man who became a mercenary and, after killing a character from the third movie (which actually took place after a few later sequels, which established that character as part of the series' main "family"), the main villain of Furious Seven—before becoming an ally to the heroes (who seem quick to forgive and/or forget that he killed one of their own and repeatedly tried to kill them). Okay, maybe it's not so simple, but the good news for those who haven't followed every development in this franchise is that every entry seems to reset and readjust its characters as necessary for the plot. The point is that the plots and the characters of these movies really, really do not matter. The plots, at their best, are excuses for big and escalating action setpieces, usually involving cars (although at times involving planes, tanks, and, in the most recent sequel, a nuclear submarine), and on a foundational level, the characters are the ones doing the action, while bickering, cheering, teaming up, or occasionally making jokes in between and during said action. As for basic human interaction, this series usually is left aspiring to the lows of soap opera. This spinoff starts with some promise, in that it gets to the most basic of basics. We get our two heroes (Without any setup, Shaw has transitioned to that role from anti-hero and villain before that without any explanation, although some vague details later suggest that he was framed for something from some unclear start), re-introduced via a split-screen montage. After going through similar but very different routines (Shaw makes an omelet, and Hobbs just swallows the yolks whole), the two separately beat up some goons. They're teamed up for a top-secret mission to find a deadly virus, created by a shadowy technology cult looking to improve humanity by killing off the weak. Brixton (Idris Elba), a mercenary augmented with a lot of mechanical wizardry, wants it for the group, but after preventing Brixton from getting the virus, Shaw's long-estranged sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), an MI6 operative, currently has capsules of it in her bloodstream. Hobbs and Shaw have to find the virus before Brixton does. The hitch is that Hobbs and Shaw hate each other, spending a lot of time bickering with and insulting each other. That fact, combined with the race for the virus and a few chase or fight sequences, is about the extent of the movie. It's nothing we haven't seen from this franchise already (save for the villain, whose superhero-like powers would seem out of place even in the series' most over-the-top entries—and whose means of defeat is almost childishly simple). That familiarity includes the tendency for screenwriters Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce to err in thinking the plot is significant enough to waste time on it (This is a bloated, 135-minute affair). There are the routine chases and fights, obviously, although director David Leitch never finds a way to elevate them above routine (The reliance on computer effects doesn't help, but then again, how else to does one get a string of four cars, latched together and to a helicopter, to hang off the edge of a cliff?). The basics of the central relationship, though, are almost sound enough to make up for that mistaken belief. Johnson and Statham bicker and banter with aplomb, which at least gives Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw a bit more personality (apart from the spectacle) than we've come to expect from this series. Other than that, it's the same, old same-old. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for prolonged sequences of action and violence, suggestive material and
some strong language)
