[Movie Review] Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Plot Summary: Lawman Luke Hobbs and outcast Deckard Shaw form an unlikely alliance when a cyber-genetically enhanced villain threatens the future of humanity.
Runtime: 2hr 25 min
Director: David Leitch
Writer: Chris Morgan
Main Cast:
- Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs
- Jason Statham as Shaw
- Idris Elba as Brixton
- Vanessa Kirby as Hattie
- Helen Mirren as Queenie
- Eiza González as Madame M
Review by: Erika T
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Shaw (Jason Statham), both the best in their respective fields begrudgingly work together to stop a cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist, Brixton (Idris Elba), from getting his hands on a virus that could alter the entire future of humanity. Shaw’s sister and top-notch MI6 agent, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), plays by her own rules to help them save the world.
I’ll preface this to say that I’m a big fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, enjoying it from its humble 2001 beginnings, completely clueless that 18 years later we’d still be seeing interations of it on the big screen. But here we are, and it makes a lot of sense. When you have a bloated ensemble cast, especially one with the one and only charismatic Dwayne Johnson, a spin-off only seems like the natural order of things. I mean, he did help reinvigorate the franchise to become the billion and change per flick juggernaut that we’re seeing today. So needless to say, I was excited for this film.
It’s funny and over-the-top. I think it definitely works best if you’ve seen the other F&F films, but this one tries to get you up to speed on the current state of things and how Hobbs and Shaw’s relationship was established. It’s non-stop ribbing between the two which makes for an entertaining time in the theatre. I feel like The Rock probably pulled so much from his WWE experience in order to carry that banter across a 2 hour and 16-minute flick, and Statham was a good sport, but it can get a little old, making you want better writing. Though I actually felt a lot of vibe from what Statham brought to Spy (2015) which is one of my favorite action comedies, albeit he’s a bit less clumsy here.
In terms of the actual plot, I actually was expecting more mention of Owen Shaw from the main franchise. If you base your knowledge on just this film, you would think the only siblings were Deckerd and Hattie, which I didn’t like from a continuity point of view.
The action was fun and Idris played a good villain, but I wanted a little more. I felt like it was good in the moment, but barely memorable compared to some of the sequences in the prior Fast films, especially my faves, Fast 5 & 6. “Serviceable” is the word that comes to mind, rather than “special”. There are times where the film is better than the trailer, but here I thought the trailer was better than the film.
As a long time fan of the series, while I understand the point of the spin-off it does a lot to bring the genera;l Fast and Furious feel and common themes to the film to the film (cars, family, diversity, ridiculous action, etc.), therefore I found myself missing the most important element, the ensemble cast. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not Olympic Gold level salty like Tyrese very vocally was about it, but…I actually think I’d have preferred a film with the whole gang?
Either way, right now it just makes me look forward to the next main F&F entry, which I hope includes all of the trio from this one.
Summary
I certainly recommend it to Fast fans as there are a lot of elements that will appeal to the fanbase, but it is not the best that the franchise has to offer and it certainly doesn’t stand out in a year where there have been 5 films already to pass the billion-dollar mark
Images Courtesy of IMDB
