The original Fast and the Furious movie was about an undercover cop looking to infiltrate a street racer gang that stole DVD players from shipping trucks…
Now, in the first spinoff and the unofficial ninth movie, we see super-cop Hobbs team up with former mass murderer Shaw as they go after a bulletproof cyborg that rides a Decepticon motorcyle.
Oh, how far we have come.
This spinoff departs from the family-centered theme of the previous F&F movies to an original concept based on….family. Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) is on the run after she infects herself with a world-destroying toxin. She is being pursued by Brixton (Idris Elba) a tech-upgraded villain that seemingly can’t be stopped. Enter frenemies Hobbs and Shaw. Together, they try to avoid the end of the world in just 72-ish hours and beat the self-proclaimed Black Superman.
Something strange happened on the way from racing cars and committing heists. Hobbs and Shaw has somehow taken the well-tread asinine formula of the recent F&F movies and doubled the testosterone. Though, I was almost disappointed that the movie didn’t double-down into displaying the franchise’s most preposterous moments yet. It wasn’t until The Rock pulled down an Apache helicopter by hand that I finally gave up the ghost and let laughter defeat my shame. My inner slack-jawed yokel reveled.
Globe-trotting is nothing new for this franchise, but the diverse locations in Hobbs & Shaw seem to be pulled out of a hat. As the crew is destroying the streets of London, they find out that their biological macguffin extractor can only be found in the most dangerous location in the world – Moscow! There’s no reason that the movie has to be there. I guess the screenwriters just rely on the audience’s fear of Russia to assume that these guy are risking their lives to go to an abandoned nuclear facility. Also, this may be the only movie to have its grand finale in Samoa. There’s so much world traveling, it’s almost amazing to think this all happens in such a short time frame. At one point in the final battle where shirtless Samoans take on terrorists, the scene changed from day to night in one quick cut. The filmmakers are either lazy or laughing at the audience that just doesn’t care about any sort of continuity or logic.
This movie spends so much time determining what R&B tracks fit perfectly over the slow-motion struts of its stars, that it forgets that there is a plot at all. In a 135 minute movie, there are (maybe) seven minutes dedicated to explaining what is actually happening. In truth, the only amount of thought that went into this movie is that Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham have good chemistry and things can go boom around them.
There are three things this movie has going for it. First, you can’t help but laugh at how stupid it all is. You’re helpless to the physics/logic-breaking nature of every scene and you have to go along for the machismo ride. The second benefit is Vanessa Kirby (MI Fallout, The Crown). She is the only actor giving this movie an effort. Also, it’s actually kind of funny to see the movie try to promote an ounce of chemistry between she and The Rock. Lastly, a few of these actor’s superfriends join in as glorified cameos and will have slack-jaws rolling in the aisles. They make for clever surprises, but quickly wear out their welcome.
Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw is a perfect continuation of how the series has gone so far. It may be so big in scale, that there is little reason to continue the original series. All we can hope for now is that they fight actual Transformers or go to space to defeat alien warlords. The series has been in on the joke for a long time, but now it feels like they’re patting themselves on the back and doing a victory lap. D
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