FAST & FURIOUS: HOBBS & SHAW / CERT: 12A / DIRECTOR: DAVID LEITCH / SCREENPLAY: CHRIS MORGAN, DREW PEARCE / STARRING: DWAYNE JOHNSON, JASON STATHAM, IDRIS ELBA, VANESSA KIRBY, HELEN MIRREN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
There’ve now been so many Fast & Furious movies that they’ve stopped adding numbers to the titles. Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw is the latest addition to the franchise that is apparently too quick and too angry to die. This time around, we have Hobbs (Johnson) and Shaw (Statham) reluctantly teaming up to take on a bad guy called Brixton (Elba). The plot revolves around a world-ending super virus, held by Hattie (Kirby). They are then a series of fights and explosions as the various heroes square off against each other. This being a Fast & Furious movie, we also have some ridiculous car chases and some amazing stunts. It’s basically a fireworks display with punching. It’s also a lot of fun.
The plot is nice, but let’s be honest, it’s just there to take us from one macho action moment to the next. The movie knows exactly what it is, acknowledges it’s flaws, laughs at itself then moves on. The result is highly entertaining. We can watch Statham and Johnson go at it all day, and that’s pretty much the point here. Two action heroes, a superfluous plot and one brilliant actor being the bad guy.
Ryan Reynolds has a brief turn as special agent Lock, and it’s pretty much the standard quick-fire nonsense we expect to see from Reynolds these days. Action fans will be relieved to hear that Hobbs and Lock simply wisecrack, rather than philosophise on the nature of society. We also get a cameo from Helen Mirren as Shaw’s master criminal mother. Seeing Mirren being a bad-ass never grows old.
There’s some mythology here of course. We learn a bit more about the various characters, and it all neatly slots into the growing meta-narrative. It’s nice that the movie producers think we care, but we are all here for the very well-choreographed fight moves, the witty one-liners, the rude words, and odd moments of comic relief. The only way any of these movies will get an Academy Award is if they pull off an elaborate heist for one. You never know, it could happen.
Arguably, this is a movie about the dangers of technological utopianism; Brixton is a cyborg who believes humanity should be upgraded. The heroes are ‘un-enhanced’, and many of their solutions are decidedly analogue. Cyborgs versus muscle men, or Iron Man versus Pumping Iron. Dumb, fun, and worth the wait. Go see it on a big screen so you can take in all the explosions.
