Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw review – the definition of stupid fun

How do you fight a movie that knows it’s stupid and wears the notion, proudly, as a badge of honour? A movie that, when attacked for its paper-thin characterisations, logical lapses, and over-the-top action, can only provoke one response from the studio that made it: “Yeah, we know.” The answer, then, is that you don’t. Leave the fighting to DSS agent Luke Hobbs and former MI6 star Deckard Shaw (Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham), transported here from the heist-based hijinks of the Fast and Furious franchise into their own spy-based, 80s-sounding spin-off: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (expect sequels).

Hobbs and Shaw originally appeared – first as enemies, then as frenemies – in Furious 7 and Furious 8, where their combined bickering and arse-kicking made them a crowd-pleasing highlight amongst the street races and set-pieces. The events depicted here require no former knowledge of previous entries, though: the story falls to a blockbuster template in which two opposites must combat their differences to save the world from a deadly MacGuffin.

After a kinetic, split-screened opening in which Hobbs and Shaw independently dispatch an array of goons – the idea being they’re destined to be together, see? – they’re enlisted to track down a rogue MI6 agent who also happens to be Shaw’s sister. Having stolen a world-ending virus, Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) has injected it into her own body, where it will lay dormant for 72 hours. Soon she joins the duo in London, before making pit stops in Moscow and Samoa, as they are pursued by a genetically-enhanced bad guy called Brixton (Idris Elba), whose heightened abilities have him referring to himself as “Black Superman.”

“Zero chemistry,” is what Hobbs tells his daughter when quizzed on his relationship with Hattie, and he’s right. Despite the effortless charisma and bulging muscles, Johnson rarely feels right playing romance, and that goes doubly so here. Thankfully the film doesn’t try too hard to force a connection. Instead it’s more interested in piling on the ludicrous set-pieces (one, involving a skyscraper, has Hobbs leaping from person to person as they grapple vertically down its side), scenes of extended banter (mixed results), and some extended cameos from a hefty number of surprisingly high-profile stars (Deadpool fans rejoice!).

The action is loud, explosive, and ridiculous, but it’s also refreshingly coherent. Even as the laws of physics are ignored (and they are ignored, repeatedly, to laugh-inducing heights), the spectacle never becomes too muddled. Where the film falls short, however, is in the repetitive, playground-level insults that Hobbs and Shaw hurl at each other, and a somewhat lagging pace during its middle (did this really need to be 136 minutes?). There are also far too many failed, 90s-inspired one-liners that aren’t quite self-aware enough in their awfulness to earn a pass. As such, it’s hard not to occasionally groan as Johnson attempts to land a dud of a line.

And yet what is Vin Diesel to make of all this? Hobbs & Shaw is proof that this franchise can work without him. I didn’t give Dominic Turetto or his motor-obsessed crew a single thought as I sat through this one, grinning like an idiot, and – more than likely – neither will you.

★★★☆☆

By: Tom Barnard

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