Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
I’m not sure where Fast & Furious purists stand on this one, but it’s got the name in the title and it’s a film, so here I am. It’s a spin-off though so the ‘family’ aren’t back; it’s just Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Jason Statham. There’s a glimmer of promise here as Atomic Blonde1 and The Fall Guy2 director David Leitch is behind the camera.
Now, I might be mis-remembering but I thought they kissed and made up in the last film so it’s a bit weird to have the two leads loathe each other at the start of this one. But they really wanted to make this a comedy and the only bit they could think of was having the two hurl insults at each other. This runs out of steam about as quickly as you might imagine.
In fact the struggle to find any jokes was so real that they had to bring Ryan Reynolds in, in weapons-grade snark mode. And Kevin Hart in a scene that feels like it will never end.
It does have Vanessa Kirby who is always one of my faves, and in this case kind of shows up the lack of spark in the other two. Idris Elba is the bad guy; he seems completely lost in some plot about him being a bionic man (literally). Of course in spite of his super powers it’s a given that he is barely stronger than Dwayne The Rock Johnson.
I think I’m starting to smell what The Rock is cooking, and it’s weird self-serving scenes about himself, his heritage and how strong he his. The final third is a seriously dodgy attempt at a man vs technology war, where we go ‘back to basics’ in The Rock’s home island of Samoa. Luckily there’s a hack that disables all the guns so when the locals bring spears and shields to the fight they’ve got a chance.
In fact, this is actually the second film where there’s been a haka (it sounds like I might be joking, no I am not joking there are two hakas in Fast & Furious).
Forced chemistry is painful to watch and that’s really what you take away from Hobbs & Shaw. Better still they tack on several post credits scenes which are of little to no importance, just to make you suffer even more.
One for completists only.