Hobbs & Shaw: Exactly what you expect.
- Philip Jurkovsky
- Aug 11, 2019
- 5 min read
The Fast & Furious presents us with their ninth installment and first spin-off feature film — Hobbs & Shaw, starring two handsome bald adonises in Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Jason Statham.
The original Fast and the Furious and the cleverly titled sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious were the epitome of early 2000's cheesy, action movies. Fast forward (furiously of course) to 2019, and the Fast and Furious franchise has showed no sign of slowing down, with Hobbs & Shaw showcasing the most cheesy and action-packed installment yet.
But you know what, it works.
Everyone who pays to see these films know exactly what they are in for, and as The Numbers show, a lot of people pay to see these films. The Fast and Furious franchise has grossed over $5.3 billion, and with Hobbs & Shaw only being released last week, as well as two confirmed up-coming sequels, this franchise is a money making goliath.
You have to share a thought for Ja Rule who supposedly turned down $500,000 to star in 2 Fast 2 Furious and most likely would have taken Tyrese Gibson's role in a franchise that has a license to print money. But after watching the recent Fyre Festival document, there is not much sympathy at this end. Can't win them all Ja.
Hobbs & Shaw sees former rivals..well..Hobbs & Shaw..team up to save the world in what I believe is the fourth time in the Fast and Furious universe. What a dark and twisted fantasy world our favourite family have been plunged into, where every single bad guy and bad girl (Charlize Theron) are only interested in ending humanity. What happened to the Johnny Tran's of the world who only wanted one thing — to win Race Wars.
So moments after getting home from saving the world in F8: Fate of the Furious (genius marketing again), Hobbs is contacted to save the world once more, by none other than Ryan Reynolds, who was cast to play a mix between Van Wilder and pre-mutated Deadpool — aka himself. At the same time, Shaw is contacted by fellow CIA agent Rob Delaney to help save the world. Proving that the CIA only hire handsome, sarcastic men.
This is somewhat of a Deadpool reunion for Reynolds and Delaney, with the former playing the role of the middle-aged, melanoma concerned dad Peter, who joined the superhuman team X-Force, despite obtaining no powers whatsoever. Deadpool director David Leitch completes the reunion tour as the director for Hobbs & Shaw.
The plot of the movie centers around a virus which can be programmed to decimate millions of people and has been self-implanted into Hattie Shaw, an MI6 field agent and sister of Shaw. Idris Elba plays a handsome, British terminator who works for a mysterious cyber terrorist organization disguised as a technology company and is assigned to track down and retrieve the virus from SOS (Sister of Shaw).
Hattie Shaw is played by Vanessa Kirby, who is a little bit of an unknown, however will no doubt land more major roles after a solid portrayal as the female sibling in a genetically attractive Shaw gene-pool. Kirby might not have to wait long at all with recent rumours suggesting the 31-year old English actress could be the next Catwoman in the upcoming Matt Reeves-directed Batman film alongside Robert Pattinson. Kirby certainly has big paws to fill, after the 2004 Halle Berry masterpiece. Lets hope Kirby's basketball skills are up to scratch.
Idris Elba is severely underused as the main villain - Brixton Lore. A man with those acting skills, ruggedly charming persona and the coolest voice in movie history should not have been wasted like that. How dare you give this man lines such as: “Genocide, shmenocide” and "Look at me, I'm the Black Superman." Despite Brixton being a super-powerful cyborg who had a real weird relationship with his motorcycle, this villain seemed to fall flat.
Luckily The Rock and Statham's continual onscreen banter was able to pick up the dullness of Brixton, despite one too many small manhood jokes. Kirby provided a solid addition to the duo, acting as the rock (not The Rock) between the two characters. There seemed to be more chemistry between the Shaw siblings then with Hattie and Hobbs, however I don't typically go to see the Fast and Furious films for their love stories.
There has been a lot of questions asked about the age gap between Hattie and Deckard Shaw, with a 21-year gap between the actors despite a flashback showing the siblings very similar in age as children. However, in a movie that sees The Rock pull a moving helicopter out of the air towards him with one arm, I think we can rule out practicality.
In saying this, the first 2/3rd's of the movie had me thinking perhaps this movie was taking a more serious and realistic approach. Ohhhhhhh how I was mistaken. All we needed was a home trip to Samoa (which was very lazily filmed in Hawaii) to bring back that true unbelievable feeling of the Fast and Furious franchise. Just when I thought this movie was teetering on the edge of plausibility, The Rock appeared shirtless wearing nothing but a sarong and sandles, performing a Samoan war dance and charging at the enemies holding nothing but a wooden native hammer...and I was back.
The climax of Hobbs & Shaw saw Brixton defeated at the hands of the most powerful enemy there is - Teamwork. Our bickering heroes put aside there egos and dick jokes to finally terminate the 'Black Terminator.' Facing the clinches of defeat, Brixton was shut down by the unknown leader of the cyber terrorism organisation Eteon, setting up the next villain for the Fast and Furious franchise. But who is this hidden puppet-master known only by their alias The Director?
Some theorize that it might be CIA agent Locke, considering Ryan Reynolds did voice the Director's monologue throughout the film. I daresay however, that this was just a ploy to save money on hiring an extra actor for the voice. I mean the franchise is quite short on cash.
Another theory is that Han Seoul-Oh could possibly be making a return in a villain role, despite being 'killed' in Fast and Furious 6 by none other than our man Deckard Shaw. Which kind of raises the question how everyone is suddenly okay will Shaw despite violently murdering their close friend. Wait, wait, wait, my bad, I almost forgot I was talking about Fast and Furious, this all checks out.
I for one, however, believe all these theories to be balderdash, and that in fact the next villain and man behind Eteon is none other than Leon.
Who is Leon you say? Leon is this guy..
Leon was part of Dominic Toretto's original crew who passed time stealing DVD players before they were in charge of saving the world. Leon was also notably in charge of keeping lookout during their illegal street races and being unnecessarily mean to pizza boys.
Leon listened into tapped police radio frequencies in case the fuzz were wise to their street racing, showing us that Leon was well advanced in technology and audio manipulation, just like The Director in Hobbs & Shaw!
This theory is quite clearly satire, but with the Fast and Furious franchise, you can never be too sure. And that is why we will continue to go and watch these movies.
Rating: 6.2
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