Who remembers the Fast and the Furious Franchise, it’s been going for a while now, so let’s get a spinoff featuring popular characters, recipe for success?
What started as a film about street racing with the
occasional heist ramped up a few gears over the years, with more focus on the
heists and action over actual street racing. It never stopped involving cars
but the genre slowly morphed. The other thing the films did is the proverbial
jump off a ramp over a tank of sharks, and then they drove out of a building
and into another building across the street, and that I mean literally.
Yeah, the overhaul of the tone of the franchise to focus on
a tight-knit ‘family’ of individuals doing increasingly ludicrous car stunts
hasn’t gone unnoticed. Still, the numbers don’t lie and Fast 5 and onwards have
been far more successful, and that has to be attributed to the tone.
Fast 5 introduced the Rock as Luke Hobbs, an FBI agent who’s
tough as nails with a very fixed moral compass, allowing him to look past his
mission and see the greater good. On the other side we have Jason Statham as
Deckard Shaw, a mastermind that murdered Han (this apparently will be retconned
in Fast 9 because the Fast Franchise lives on comic book logic) and has had a
rivalry with Hobbs as they had to work together for a common good in Fast 8.
Both characters have a broad appeal, mostly because of the
actors playing them. And despite some behind-the-scenes controversy over this,
they were spun off into their own film, Hobbs and Shaw. The film was released
in 2019, back when the cinema wasn’t a scary dangerous place, to mixed to
positive reviews, and $750m on a $200m budget, can’t really say fairer than
that.
In the director’s chair we have David Leich, who we last saw as the director of Deadpool 2, and writing we have Chris Morgan, who’s been writing for the franchise since Tokyo Drift. I’d say these are relatively safe hands, so let’s see if I’m right.
We open on with an MI6 raid on somewhere as our third lead,
Hattie Shaw and a group of other agents raid an enemy base in the middle of
London seeking a particularly deadly virus. Unfortunately, it’s not going well,
especially with the arrival of Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) who seems to shake off
their weaponry and throw cars like they’re twigs. Hattie manages to get into
the back of the truck where the virus is being held, but escape is difficult
and if pursued the virus could be released.
Whilst Brixton isn’t able to stop her, he mimics the voices
of one of the agents, telling the agency that Hattie betrayed them and has the
virus. He then orders the remaining agents killed.
We then get a day in the lives of Luke Hobbs and Deckard
Shaw. Quick question about this though, why is Shaw going after a mob boss? He
doesn’t work for a law agency like Hobbs, he’s a disgraced MI6 agent and the
only reason he isn’t in jail is… I haven’t seen Fast 8 in a while; does it
happen it that one?
Hobbs has a daughter, and the two are having pancakes
together and doing a bit of third act foreshadowing when Ryan Reynolds shows
up. He’s playing some CIA agent who’s got Hobbs on contract to help retrieve
the programmable virus. The scientist who created it is also off the grid, they
need him to track down Hattie before she causes the end of the world.
Meanwhile Shaw is visiting his mother (Helen Mirran) in
prison. And they’re talking aloud, in view of the guards about things they
really shouldn’t be. This also sets up some character stuff for Shaw later on.
As he leaves a member of the CIA tasks him with tracking down his sister (yes,
the Shaw name is not a co-incidence) with this team wanting to bring her in
alive.
They both meet up in an office in London and immediately
decide they don’t want to work together. Shaw doesn’t want to work with Hobbs
because he’s big, muscular and about as stealthy as a freight train. And Hobbs
doesn’t want to work with Shaw because he’s a psycho who’s murdered innocent
people *checks notes* wait no, it’s because he has a funny voice.
They split up to check different avenues. Shaw heads to
Hattie’s house, whilst Hobbs tries to work out her route through checking
camera blind-spots. The amazing thing is, this works. Shaw manages to sneak his
way into the apartment, not tripping the booby traps but is soon ambushed by a
bunch of armed agents. Shaw is able to grab weapons of his own and action
occurs. Because it’s so dark it’s difficult to make the action out, but not
impossible.
Hobbs finds Hattie wearing a wig rather easily but she’s
ready for a fight. Of course, this is the Rock so despite getting a few hits in
she loses that fight and is brought back to the CIA. Hobbs suspects she’s
innocent because of the way she fought earlier. But then his phone rings and he
leaves the room to answer it. Now, I don’t care if it’s his daughter on the
other end, this is incredibly unprofessional, especially for someone who works
in intelligence. I’m going to put Idris Elba finding them later on his head for
this.
Shaw comes back from his fight scene and the pissing match
can continue. I’m blunt, but the tirage of insults Hobbs and Shaw through at
each other through the movie is its main conflict, the main source of comedy
and it works, largely because of Jason Statham and the Rock portraying them. I
can’t describe it in detail without giving away all their insults so know that
however negatively I may be describing it, I consider it a net positive for the
film.
Hattie reveals that she injected herself with the virus and
they need to find a way to get it out of her, but before that can happen
Brixton and several troops burst in, killing everyone except Hobbs and the
Shaws, and grabbing Hattie. Hobbs dives out the window after her, whilst Shaw
takes the lift, much to Hobbs’ ire. Shaw and Brixton talk, revealing they have
history, and that Shaw shot him in the head, leading to him receiving
mechanical enhancements. They manage to rescue Hattie and drive off in Shaw’s
car, but Brixton and his men aren’t far behind.
They have a cool car chase, pretty standard for a Fast and
Furious film, through all the non-branded areas of London. Seriously, did you
ask for any brand to fork up money to be included, I’m pretty sure a few
would’ve said yes. This film had a $200m budget. They win through a trick
manoeuvre, much to Brixton’s annoyance. But he does have a trick up his sleeve
too. Brixton works for a shadow-corporation called Eteon and uses their media
influence to make Hobbs and Shaw all look like traitors. Pretty sure the CIA
could’ve cleared them as it’s pretty obvious they don’t believe it at all but
that’s another problem.
Brixton reports his findings to the voice behind Eteon who wants them brought in as assets, rather than killed, much to Brixton’s annoyance. Hobbs had been scoping out the scientist, and found him on a single security camera, he is reading a newspaper that only happens to be sold by one vendor in London. Convenient
Professor Andreiko had intended to use the virus to deliver
vaccines quickly world-wide… If only he knew, if only he knew…
So there are 2 ways of extracting the virus, either by
killing Hattie or by extracting the virus with an extractor that can be found
in the Eteon compound in, get this, Chernobyl. Deckard has an contact in Russia
that may be able to get them in, but first it requires them to get out of the
country. Hobbs has another chat with his daughter that really ought to have
given away their location, but Shaw reveals that he has cloned their phone
signals so they can’t be tracked. Reversing the order of these two things is
all it would’ve taken.
Shaw is also working on falsifying passports so they can get
through airport security. His identity for Hobbs is Mike Oxmaul. Say that
again, slowly and then you’ll get it. Hobbs’ counter later on is much less
subtle. He gets pulled aside by airport security but he’s quickly back with
them since Hobbs has some level of charm. More bitching followed by a cameo by
Kevin Hart. Thank god he isn’t in much of the rest of this movie, because
there’s only so much of him I can take. He’s an air warden and that’ll factor
in later on.
They arrive in Russia and meet Madame M, a gangster who
steals from other gangsters, or DBW for short. I mean she doesn’t die in this
film but given that she pisses off gangsters, it’s only a matter of time. She
provides them with ludicrous spy-tech to carry out their mission. Their plan is
to use an old con trick the Shaw’s used to use known as McJagger. Hattie will
be ‘caught’ and brought to the device whilst Hobbs and Deckard will sneak in
and provide a rescue.
Oh, during this Doctor Andreiko is captured by Eteon to help
re-programme the virus. Hobbs and Shaw are jetted to the base as Hattie is
brought in. They freefall and only open the parachute 3ft from the ground. I
know it’s a technique used in other films, opening your parachute as late as
possible to avoid air defences but… nah, they’re dead from that fall, the
parachute hasn’t been open long enough to slow them down.
We get the bit that was in every trailer where they fight
some guys, well, Shaw does whilst Hobbs easily KO’s the one guy he was up
against. What you don’t see in the trailer is it’s all for naught and they get
captured. Hattie manages to escape her confinement and steal the device to
remove the virus.
Even tied up with electric bits stuck in them, Hobbs and
Shaw can’t resist sniping each other, even Brixton finds it amusing, to a
point. OK, so his plan and stop me if you’ve heard this one. Humanity is
destroying itself, so it’s time to wipe out some of them with a virus.
Conspiracy theorists, get your keyboards at the ready, I’ve just given you a
field day.
Obviously, this is completely nuts but seeing that Hattie
has escaped and might be able to help thin down the heard a bit, Hobbs stalls
by pretending to buy into it. Cue action scene. It’s quite a long one too, like
seriously long, maybe a bit too long. Hobbs and Shaw had rigged the compound to
explode because they needed a ticking clock for this scene.
OK, so Hattie is rescued, they have the machine to draw the
virus from her blood, Brixton is defeated, time to wrap this up? Wait, there’s
still 45 minutes left? HOW?! So, needing to go somewhere Eteon can’t find them
it’s time to head to Samoa, which in this film will be played by Hawaii. Brixton
gets some repairs and is told he no longer needs to try and bring them in
alive.
Hobbs needs to face his family, something he hasn’t done.
Apparently, he turned in his father for doing some illegal sh*t or another. His
brothers, who were also involved aren’t exactly pleased to see him but with the
fate of the world and an absolutely kickass mother, they have to provide them
help. One problem, they don’t have guns but because they apparently own the
island, they’re able to set it up with booby traps. There are explosions in
this film that would have Michael Bay salivating.
Anyway, they have to buy some time as the movie needs
another ticking clock… I mean, the extraction device takes half an hour to
work. Fortunately, the bad guys have overcomplicated weaponry that activates
via machine chip, so Hattie is instantly a hacker and begins hacking in and
shutting the weapons down, at least for 6 minutes.
So they fight begins and because Hattie insists on being in
the action despite being moderately incapacitated she’s captured, again, and
Hobbs and Shaw set out to rescue her, again. But when all seems lost, it’s time
to bend the laws of physics as they use a line of cars and tow cables to stop a
helicopter from taking off. I love this franchise, so dumb.
They activate their nitros and that’s enough to bring the
helicopter down so the brawling can continue. And of course, Brixton’s
enhancements serve to his advantage, until they realise that his AI is so
pathetic it can’t see 2 attacks coming at once, so they consistently bait and
switch attacks to keep him off balance. Hattie kills the other rather guy as
our duo knock Brixton down. They hold off on killing him for reasons, but it’s
not important as Eteon shuts him down. The mysterious voice tells them they’re
very impressive and victory is theirs.
The wrap up happens in the end credits. Hobbs takes his
daughter to see the fam, Deckard sneaks in a thing for his mum to break out of
jail. Hobbs sets up Shaw with a sting under the name Hugh Janus. Didn’t need to
read that one slow to get it, did you? Prank war to follow.
Also, there’s a scene with Ryan Reynolds doing a bit on Game
of Thrones. We get it, season 8 was disappointing also, THIS ISN’T DEADPOOL!
So that was Hobbs and Shaw, it’s about as you’d expect, not
high intellectual art but something you can turn you brain off to, and enjoy
the action and banter. Idris Elba makes a villain that would otherwise probably
be rather boring work, despite the premise being rather outlandish for a Fast
and Furious Film. He does go down rather easily in the end though.
There are a few loose ends that aren’t tied up, such as how
they restored their reputations. Did Shaw ever set the record straight on
whatever went on with him and Brixton in MI6. The humour is solid throughout
unless they’re using a guest celebrity. Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds are more
irksome than funny.
Praise Rating 53%
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