Hobbs & Shaw works best when just lets its heroes bicker with love
Affability goes a long way in the ludicrously titled Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. To its credit, the Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham-starring spinoff trends closer to Rogue One than X-Men Origins: Wolverine , as probably unnecessary franchise tangents go. Likeable enough to stand out as a yankee-limey odd couple in their appearances in the past two Fast & Furious movies — where Statham started out as a villain, not that such allegiances have ever mattered here — Johnson and Statham now anchor their own outing, an overstuffed but reasonably entertaining action comedy that works best when it forgoes the series’ infamous stunt-based set pieces and just lets its heroes bicker with love.
True to the series’ focus on the family ties that bind criminals and law enforcement, the story hinges on the irascible feds’ efforts to track Shaw’s sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), an MI6 agent who injects herself with an apocalyptic virus in the opening scene to keep it out of the hands of the wrong sort of people. She’s framed and then pursued by self-described “bad guy” and cybernetically enhanced mercenary Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). Lore has a history with her brother, and thinks his robot augmentations, including a thoroughly unimpressive Google Glass-like vision of the world around him, make him the next stage of humanity. It’s up to our partners-by-necessity to track Hattie down before the virus that’s dormant within her leaches out into the world, with a little help from a pair of bumbling handlers (played by cameoing comic actors, presumably launching larger roles in the franchise movies proper), Shaw’s prison-bound mother (Helen Mirren) and Hobbs’ extended family in Samoa.
Former stunt coordinator David Leitch brings his penchant for gravity and logic-defying car chases, and keeps things moving at a fast clip for the first hour or so. Leitch infuses the quip-and-punch saturated opening montage that introduces us to our separate heroes with the same fetching neon colour scheme he brought to his uncredited co-directorial debut on John Wick , and executes some inventive hand-to-hand combat in an early Hobbs-Hattie skirmish turned dance that sees her putting a motorcycle helmet to novel use. “You learn a lot about people when you fight them,” Hobbs says afterward in a sweet moment that has more gravitas than it otherwise might given Leitch’s background and Johnson’s own long career in professional wrestling, which is also referenced in nods to his signature eyebrow-raise.
Still, the director’s unique talents seem wasted in an overlong, haphazardly cut melee battle on Hobbs’ home turf in the last act. The tedious climax invites unflattering comparisons to Avatar in the way it pits colourful Indigenous fighters against technologically-enhanced baddies in combat gear, without having much to say about the power imbalance, or much regard for the locals besides bland aphorisms about how tough they are. The Chevy versus helicopter payoff, teased in the ads, also feels unnecessarily prolonged, proving that impossible images like these have more impact the first time you see them than they do 10 minutes later.
The film hits its target most squarely when it keeps the stakes low and the scale small, following Elba’s impishly bored delivery of “Genocide shmenocide.” For every slow-motion stunt built to impress, there’s a more genuinely ingratiating aside where the scene-stealing Kirby — 20 years younger than Statham, but inexplicably passed off as about the same age — chews on an incredulous line reading. The less said about the incoherent motivations of Elba’s villain, and our titular heroes’ bizarre, out of left field argument for why their human ingenuity will always trump his mechanical perfection, the better. Again, it’s the simple pleasures that hook us and linger, like Elba christening himself “Black Superman” — a likely nod to Johnson’s forthcoming role as DC villain Black Adam — while looking statuesque in flattering leather armour.
Most of all, though, Hobbs & Shaw hums along more than capably when it gives us what the title promises: a leisurely hangout movie spin-off to the series’ many dopey — and all the more beloved for it — family barbecues.