Action film ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ is nothing but surprising fun.
If you think you’re too smart for action films, Hobbs and Shaw are here to surprise you
“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” is nothing but fun. It will inevitably be seen by fans of action movies — a considerable audience, to be sure — but this one deserves an even bigger crowd than that.
Usually with an action franchise movie, in this case a spinoff of the “Fast & Furious” series, the thought is, “How good can it be, but then again, how bad could it be?” These movies hit a certain target, with a certain number of action set pieces, and they’ve done their job. But “Hobbs & Shaw” is witty and mischievous, full of surprise and invention, and a total blast.
Perhaps it loses just a little velocity in the last half hour, but not much, and it never loses interest. If you want to strap in and have a movie take you for a big ride, “Hobbs & Shaw” is the best of its kind since “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.”
The beginning is shot out of a cannon. Something bad is going on in London, involving Idris Elba as Brixton, a leatherclad man strangely impervious to bullets. He wants to steal a virus that can liquefy the organs of most people on the planet. He thinks this is a good idea. He wants to liquefy most people’s organs. He wants to push evolution along, you see. But he’s temporarily thwarted when a British agent, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), takes the virus and goes on the run.
Next up, we get a split screen, something
that’s almost never welcome, but director David Leitch uses it well. On the left, there’s Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and on the right there’s Shaw (Jason Statham). Hobbs wakes up by himself. Shaw wakes up with a woman. Hobbs has a power shake for breakfast. Shaw fusses over an omelet. Hobbs walks outside, and there are palm trees (Los Angeles). Shaw walks outside, and it’s raining (London). Aside from being bald, these guys are very different, but soon they will be working together.
The screenplay for “Hobbs & Shaw” was written by Chris Morgan, who has been writing for the “Fast & Furious” series for years. He started with the very weak “Tokyo Drift” in 2006 but has since redeemed himself many times over with solid entries, including “Fast Five,” “Fast & Furious 6” and “The Fate of the Furious.” What comes through in his writing is that Morgan doesn’t just understand Hobbs and Shaw, he finds them delightful, like Noel Coward writing for Gertrude Lawrence. He can’t wait to throw them into the same room and have them go at each other.
The result is banter that’s not just lively, but genuinely sharp and clever. One guy is huge, the other slight. One guy likes to smash things, the other prefers subtlety, and each thinks the other is an idiot. But there’s a woman going around London with capsules of the Black Death 2.0 under her skin, and they have to collaborate and find her before the evil Brixton does. Then they have to extract the virus and dispose of it, all the while dodging the intelligence services of their respective countries, because the CIA and MI6 really don’t have a clue.
Vanessa Kirby is best known for playing Princess Margaret in the TV series “The Crown,” but last year she had a role in “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” and “Hobbs & Shaw,” shows that she can be making this kind of action movie for as long as she wants. She’s a terrific actress, worthy of greater challenges, but what she brings to the action genre is emotional precision and delicacy, as well as a porcelain look that’s morally ambiguous, that says, “This is a complicated person.” She can go either way.
Johnson, Statham and Kirby become a trio, and it’s a pleasure to follow them all over the globe. Along the way, there are a handful of action sequences that are offthecharts insane. At one point, Johnson jumps out of a skyscraper, without a parachute, and falls about 20 stories before landing on a guy who is lowering himself on cables. Oh, but that’s not enough. Thirty seconds later, Johnson does it again.
Usually chase scenes are boring. Not here. Statham drives under a truck. Elba crashes a motorcycle through the upper deck of a red London bus and lands on the other side. “Hobbs & Shaw” does all the usual things, but it does them in unusual ways. And it stays funny. In one scene, Hobbs goes back to his native Samoa and visits his mother. “Look at you,” she says. “All skin and bones.”
A number of famous faces show up for a single scene. They’re best left as a surprise. But if you’re wondering why these people would want to do a walkon, the answer is obvious. The script is good. Every cameo is a little star turn.
You don’t just dash off a movie and have it turn out this satisfactory. “Hobbs & Shaw” was made with love, and it shows.
One guy likes to smash things, the other prefers subtlety, and each thinks the other is an idiot. But there’s a woman going around London with capsules of the Black Death 2.0 under her skin, and they have to collaborate and find her.