Movie Review-Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

In the 80s and 90s, Hollywood denied cinephiles the pleasure of having two of its most iconic action movie behemoths star in the same movie. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, whilst good friends and business partners in real life, never starred in the same movie at the height of their tag-team dominance of the action movie genre in the 80s and 90s.

The closest these two came to being in the same movie, I guess, would have to be a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger as former president of the United States of America in 1993’s Demolition Man starring Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock and Wesley Snipes.

When eventually Hollywood saw fit to put them in the same movies (The Expendables and Escape Plan), they had both past their prime and the novelty of it had pretty much waned.

Two decades into the 21st Century, cinema is, arguably, yet to have a definitive action movie behemoth in the action movie genre the same way Stallone and Schwarzenegger ruled the genre in the 80s and 90s.

21st Century’s cinema’s closest contenders to that title would, arguably, be Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham (with my money being on the latter more). Interestingly, Whilst Johnson (in build and machismo) harkens to the 80s/90s muscle-bound, one man army bad-ass style of action movie hero, Statham, in contrast, is more representative of what the 21st Century action movie hero should look like; sleek, lean and mean fighting machine with a snazzy and bespoke sartorial style.

So, when in 2011 the Fast & the Furious Franchise needed a souped-up do-over to elevate it from a race car cult movie franchise to a billion dollar blockbuster action movie franchise, Johnson’s “Samoan Thor” Luke Hobbs was introduced in what is unarguably the Franchise’s best instalment; Fast Five.

Just when you thought the Franchise had maxed out on high-octane acceleration, they revved it up even more with a 0–100mph in 3seconds end-credit introduction of Statham’s Deckard Shaw in 2013’s Fast & Furious 6.

In 2015’s Furious 7 and 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, beyond the movies’ improbable storylines and outlandish over-the-top stunts, what really stood out was the undeniable chemistry between Johnson’s Hobbs and Statham’s Shaw. It therefore came as no surprise when in 2017, a spin-off from the franchise involving Johnson and Statham was announced.

In keeping with the Franchise-typical incongruous and improbable storyline, Hobbs & Shaw lays bare its storyline canvass; a genocidal virus retrieval attempt by a crew of M16 agents goes awry when a cybernetically-enhanced bad guy and his crew jumps them.

But before the bad guys can get their hands on the virus and go all Thanos on genetically-inferior mankind, the sole-surviving M16 agent injects herself with the virus and escapes the bad-guys.

Next, a series of vignette-type sequences introduce us to the titular characters laying the smack down on not-so-bad bad guys all leading up to the inevitable first encounter between them since the events of The Fate of the Furious.

In their first encounter at the CIA office, Hobbs and Shaw ate up the scene with a much expected back and forth smack talk when they find out they have to work together.

Hobbs delivers his not quite with the effusive bravado of his wrestling character, the Rock, but with the assured confidence of an immovable object. Statham replies with the stiff upper lip delivery of a lone wolf bad-ass who rightly considers himself an irresistible force.

The highly enjoyable exchanges are interspersed with high-falutin stunt and action sequences throughout the movie’s 2-hour plus run time. Between quips of pop-culture references, whoop whoop-inducing cameos are introduced and almost upstaged by shameless knock-offs of stunt sequences from other movies and tempered down with Deadpool-ish knocks on the Final season of Game of Thrones.

Nobody goes to see an action movie (especially one from the Fast & Furious Franchise) expecting a well-thought out and logical storyline. The attraction really is the action/stunt sequences and flurry of repartee between characters.

Very self-aware of its genre limitations in the storyline plausibility department, Hobbs & Shaw made no pretentions of gunning for the cerebral as much as it did for over-the-top and deliciously enjoyable improbable action/stunt sequences whilst also making a play for the franchise-favoured familial fall-out and reconciliation.

Performance-wise, there was no competition (save, perhaps, for some Deadpool-ish brilliance that suggests a promising territory for franchise collaboration somewhere down the road, someday) that upstaged Johnson and Statham as the titular characters.

In Hobbs & Shaw, Johnson and Statham gave what action movie cinephiles would no doubt have loved to see in 80s and 90s cinema; a movie starring two of the genre’s most iconic behemoths. These two had a chemistry that was instantly obvious and deliciously enjoyable to watch. They were Ying and Yang deployed with an overdose of crash boom bang!7.5/10