The most violent episode of ‘Family Ties’ imaginable
I love the full title: “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.” It suggests an English music hall comedy team tucked inside an action franchise.
This agreeable, casually vicious double act of a $200 million ode to fossil fuel heightens the trans-Atlantic trash talk (“She-Hulk” vs. “hobbit legs,” to quote two insults) between Dwayne Johnson’s ex-Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, representing America — twice, while pumping iron, he’s backed by the biggest American flag on the market — and Jason Statham’s reformed criminal and perma-snarler Deckard Shaw, representing Britain. Former adversaries, now uneasy partners in world-saving, they’re relative latecomers to the franchise begun 18 years ago.
Vanessa Kirby of “The Crown” and “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” is the primary reason “Hobbs & Shaw” rises above pure formula and borderlinecontemptible familiarity.
For reasons the recent “Fast and Furious” movies explained in between folding chairs to the face, Hobbs and Shaw hate each other because they love each other. You kill a guy’s brother, you stir up some resentments. But these movies always come back to the notion and value of family, and however shamelessly, “Hobbs & Shaw” ups the ante with both characters wrestling with mother issues and sibling issues alongside a new apocalyptic threat to the planet.
Namely: a “supervirus,” developed to create a new race of “Terminator”strength androids designed to withstand, well, the sort of people who invent superviruses. The villain here is a cyber-genetically enhanced brute with superb dramatic instincts and a lovely way of tossing off boilerplate dialogue. In other words, he’s played by Idris Elba.
As much as he can make it, the movie’s his from the second he utters a onesyllable rejoinder (“nah”) just before murdering a bunch of British ops trying to retrieve the virus. With a cryptic half-smile, Kirby portrays the MI6 agent Hattie, who is Shaw’s sister, and injects herself with the substance. This sets the doomsday clock ticking.
Half the job in a film like this is the appearance, which may well be the reality, of having fun. Kirby’s gassed about being in a big action movie, and when you have someone of her caliber rattling through exposition with such elan and sly wit, you think, well, the material’s not Shakespeare, but it’ll do.
The banter in “Hobbs & Shaw” has its moments, especially when screenwriters Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce let a verbally driven scene go on a little too long. But who gives a rip? The plot is stupid. Are Ryan Reynolds (returning as a fawning CIA op) and Kevin Hart (new to the series, as a stir-crazy air marshal) “germane” to the “plot”? “No.” They’re “not.” But I’d happily see a spinoff devoted to these two characters.
Another question: Is “Hobbs & Shaw” suitable for kids? It’s rated PG-13 but it’s a very rough PG-13.
In truth I don’t love the action aesthetic as packaged here; “Deadpool 2,” also insanely violent, was quicker on its feet, funnier and more dynamic in its brutalities. Not that I’d show that one to a 10-year-old. But millions of 10-year-olds will be seeing “Hobbs & Shaw” and most of them will enjoy it, because the franchise delivers the pain as well as the sincere devotion to family ties. The best thing about this universe is its broad cultural and ethnic landscape. The best thing about “Hobbs & Shaw” is watching and listening to how Elba and Kirby tone things up on the fly, performing little magic tricks with their dialogue.
Michael Phillips is a Chicago Tribune critic.