The
Fast and the Furious franchise increasingly ups the ante
from entry to entry, revving its metaphorical engine louder and louder in hopes
of exciting an audience that yearns for more. Since a rather lowly beginning
back in 2001 and the few lackluster entries that followed, the former street
racing series has been a decent to great franchise, both critically and
financially, due in large part to the introduction of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
in Fast Five. Eight years later, and a spat with
the other franchise front man, and Johnson finally gets a spin-off film.
Ever
since hulking lawman Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a loyal agent of America's
Diplomatic Security Service, and lawless outcast Shaw (Jason Statham), a former
British military elite operative, first faced off years ago, the duo have
swapped smack talk and body blows as they’ve tried to take each other down. But
when cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton (Idris Elba) gains control of
an insidious bio-threat that could alter humanity forever — and bests a
brilliant and fearless rogue MI6 agent (Vanessa Kirby), who just happens to be
Shaw’s sister — these two sworn enemies will have to partner up to bring down
the only guy who might be badder than themselves.
Let’s
be completely honest here, no one expects a revolutionary story from an action
film featuring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. They’re both here because of
their ability to spew one liners, deliver insults and sell a convincing tough
guy demeanor, and on that account, Hobbs & Shaw excels
in its resemblance to 90s action movies that have come before. It manages to
toe the line of self-awareness and cheesiness incredibly, yet still be
completely outlandish. Outlandish being the optimal word considering Idris Elba
is playing a straight up super powered villain in this entry.
Everybody
is looking to Hobbs & Shaw for
two things: charismatic performances from the leads and ridiculous action
(we’ll get to that second one later). As stated before, Statham and Johnson are
action pros at this point, they completely understand what film they’re in and
play to that pretty well for the entirety of the film. Elba comes in as a fun
villain, a rare person who understands that they’re the bad guy (even stating
it at one point). But the highlight by far has to be Vanessa Kirby. The actress
has started to build a solid action resume between this and Mission:
Impossible - Fallout last year, but her performance here has
to make one wonder when she is going to get her own bonkers action film to
lead.
Unfortunately,
this is where the praise for the film must end. Despite a great cast and pretty
self-aware tone to the whole endeavor, Hobbs & Shaw falls
short in the execution of the action. Somehow it winds up being incredibly
dull, from a staging and visual perspective, despite having an action veteran
in David Leitch in the director’s chair. Yes, the setups are bonkers,
completely crazy scenarios on their face, but when the action starts, so does
the seemingly infinite cuts that make anything on screen look like every other
boring action movie to come in the past decade.
Oh,
and there are two comedic cameos that are so painfully forced that it probably
dropped the film a whole letter grade. It seems appropriate to tack this on to
the review like these actors were to the movie.
Fast & Furious Presents:
Hobbs & Shaw (an absolute mouthful of a title) is
takes the exact appropriate tone for an action comedy, and utilizes its actors
fairly well. It isn’t afraid to be a little corny or silly, nor does it have
any ambition to be more than what it is, and for that the film has to be
commended for resisting the self-serious nature of latter entries of the main
line of films. However, the action can’t deliver anything worthwhile to make
this truly stand out, so what’s left is an average film that shows some promise
as potential franchise within a franchise, but can’t deliver much more than
that on the first installment.
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