Michael’s Review: Hobbs & Shaw

Hey man, do you like Dwayne Johnson? You like Jason Statham? How about the titillating mix of Idris Elba and mass wanton violence? Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions then chances are you’re going to like the latest in the impossibly long-running Fast and Furious franchise, Hobbs & Shaw. Er, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Let’s just call it Hobbs & Shaw.

The world’s in trouble. A deadly virus, a wrongly accused MI6 agent, and a crazed super soldier are all out there causing havoc. Who ya gonna call? Well, for some very tenuous reasons, you’re going to call Lucas Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), but this time you’re going to leave out their Fast & Furious brethren, because this time it’s going to take more than cars and a gravelly-voiced street racer to get the job done.

Joining our dynamic duo is Shaw’s younger sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), who makes this much more of a trio than you might expect, and also works as a potential love interest and time bomb. Pretty useful chick, that Hattie Shaw. Together, this odd couple and their plus one must take on former Shaw ally Brixton (Idris Elba), who has hooked up with a mysterious SPECTRE-esque group that’s endowed him with superhuman strength, enhanced vision, a creepy robotic spine, and a swanky motorcycle that may also be his best friend. We’ll see how Tumblr works out that last one.

Directed by David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2), Hobbs & Shaw is a big, loud action spectacular above all else. The explosions are bountiful, the fists are consistently flying, and the cars go vroom-vroom real good. Since Leitch knows what he’s good at, it’s no surprise that those elements are handled extremely well. There are a handful of borderline incoherent moments, but they’re few and far between. For the most part, Leitch succeeds at his primary objective, with some of the action sequences standing out due to sheer technical ingenuity and raw power.

Arguably secondary to the action are our stars. Johnson and Statham were both unsurprising breakouts for the franchise, with Johnson in particular absolutely dominating Hobbs’ debut in Fast Five, and so shock and awe… they’re both great. I know it’s hard to believe, but having two of the most charismatic modern action heroes headlining a huge Hollywood blockbuster is actually a pretty good idea. Ninety percent of their screen time is spent either physically decimating enemies or verbally tearing into each other with an endless supply of one liners. It’s this aspect of the film that the audience was absolutely eating up and could have probably been given another course or two without any complaints.

Luckily this isn’t all testosterone and male bravado. Kirby, who memorably showed up as the White Widow in Mission: Impossible Fallout, is endlessly engaging and able to stand out just as much as the leading men. Her worth is never even questioned, and she typically makes it out of scraps with little help. If you’re looking for a strong woman with a generous helping of British sass, then you’re going to have a good time.

I really have to stress this: Hobbs & Shaw is immensely entertaining. It’s funny, outlandish, and is dripping with chemistry. It’s also one of the most generic and groan-inducing entries in a franchise that features Vin Diesel and an amnesia plot that spans three whole movies.

The worst news is that Idris Elba is wasted here. As an actor he’s nearly flawless, but series regular screenwriter Chris Morgan (here joined by Hotel Artemis writer/director Drew Pearce) has finally given us a flop of a villain. While Elba’s Brixton certainly has more presence than, say, Owen Shaw, he’s also your standard issue super soldier in service of a cult-like benevolent organization. He’s little more than a glorified henchman with a superiority complex. It’s straight up unfortunate that the fan favorite for the first black James Bond is relegated to being a SPECTRE lieutenant.

At no point do we get any real insight about Brixton beyond his role in Shaw’s past, which only hinders Brixton further because, frankly, no one needs Shaw’s backstory to be retconned. The dude killed Han. He’s a bad guy. We don’t need to waste one of the best actors around on making the target of #JusticeForHan slightly more of a good dude. Unfortunately, when Brixton is stripped of this backstory, he just turns into a lame duck with a very questionable weakness. Even his cool trailer line, that he’s just a “bad guy”, doesn’t work out to be as cool as it would seem, since he just goes on to expound about all the good that he’s doing by committing genocide. Womp womp.

Plot-wise, the entire film feels like something of a poor man’s Bond, perhaps with a touch of PG-13 Kingsmen. While the budget is there, and many of the action set pieces would give Bond a run for his money, there’s just something soulless about the transparent mimicry on display. This is a completely functional script, with all of the character arcs necessary — Hobbs needs to reconnect with his family! Shaw needs to reconnect with his family! FAMILY! — but it’s all very transparent, just there to service the action and move us forward with more of the threadbare story. It’s basically everything that was wrong with ’90s action flicks, albeit bolstered by several of their best qualities.

Look, I’m not going to pretend the Fast & Furious franchise has ever been particularly deep. After all, this globetrotting series started as a Point Break ripoff about stealing DVD players from moderately fast trucks. However, it’s always been a series with a lot of heart, and while Fate of the Furious certainly took things to a more melodramatic and silly level, that heart was still there. Hobbs & Shaw attempts to give its outlandish narrative some heart, but it all feels tacked on and false… well, other than Hobbs’ mother Sefina (Lori Pelenise Tuisano). She’s a delight and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees.

Despite the lackluster villain and stumbling attempts at emotional resonance, Hobbs & Shaw is absolutely worth a trip to the theater. At worst, it’s an incredibly derivative script buoyed by solid direction and some stellar heroes. Copious CGI and stupidity mean that it never reaches the resonance of the series’ original pseudo spin-off Tokyo Drift, and the absence of Dom and the crew presents a flaw that Hobbs & Shaw never quite shakes off. Still, it’s a fun ride, and in that sense it fits in just fine in the ever-expanding Fast & Furious cinematic universe that’s sure to survive all of humanity and only die once the sun itself has been snuffed out.

Grade: B-
Running Time: 2h 15m
MPAA Rating: PG-13