The Fast & Furious franchise continues with its ninth entry and first spin-off film, Hobbs and Shaw. Centered around the muscular Dwayne Johnson and the English Jason Statham in this late Summer blockbuster fueled by testosterone, sex appeal, and the roaring of engines. Fan favorite talents Vanessa Kirby and Idris Elba join this franchise with their first appearance, and they greatly outperform the two leads in their own movie. Despite a complicated relationship with this childhood favorite franchise, Hobbs and Shaw was the promise for an evolution into pure insanity, but it’s really just a recycled version of the last two entries.
By now we all know what this franchise is, and it’s identity is totally justified. It’s always had the clashing masculine men with the camera ogling at short-skirted women as NOS-infused vehicles roar through the streets around them, but now it’s taken to task something beyond that. Hobbs and Shaw has the masculine men, a capable female lead but her most noted characteristic is how gorgeous she is, and insane vehicles doing insane things, but like Fate 8 and most of Furious 7, Hobbs and Shaw suffers from “been there done that”. With the evolution of technology becoming prominent in Fast 6, this franchise has recycled it’s story. Painting the technology as the evil that the bad guys and girls rely on, while the good guys are full of heart, family oriented, and raw in strength and numbers because they have a bond with people and not technology. It’s something of a commentary that I quite like and feel is executed quite well in Furious 7. Especially in a climate that is becoming more engrossed in the windows of computer screens, cell phones, televisions, and even drones. The problem with Hobbs and Shaw (beyond a myriad of other issues), is that it’s basically the same movie with moving parts playing different roles and it comes off as a painless reskin, but a reskin nonetheless.
Sure Hobbs and Shaw aren’t the reflections of Brian and Dom, but they essentially play the same exact roles. Clashing personalities, one of them likes the other sister, there’s an accented villain that has some misty, forced past attached to one of them, and by the end they warm up to one another as they learn something positive from each other. On the forefront, that sounds like a typical buddy cop comedy, and I’ll admit that it still works for the most part, but it’s apart of a movie that still wants to hold on to that foundation of the franchise. For a film that wants to essentially be the live-action equivalent to a Looney Toons power hour, it still insists on being about this serious, sometimes heavily dramatic element that deals with family.
I think that it’s really exciting that a multi-million dollar franchise is concerned with having a running theme in it’s franchise, but when it gets to this level of absurdity it contradicts some of it’s more dramatic moments that are played straight. The cars in the Fast & Furious franchise have basically been these characters’ “Iron Man armor”. So when they’re dragging around a safe full of money and destroying a city in the process in Fast Five, it comes off far more entertaining because these cars have been shown as their superpower. They’ve flown, dodged oil tankers, nearly broken the sound barrier, saved lives, and more. So when we see these cars do bizarre stunts with the characters in them, it makes the action more palatable and enjoyable to watch. Not only is it cool that these cars can do insane stunts, but we care about those characters because it’s rooted in deep, thematic purpose for them. That’s when the franchise was at its best.
When Furious 7 came around, it became less about cars doing super stunts, and more about the human characters also doing them. Whether it’s demolishing an entire parking garage with the stomp of a foot, or crashing into the umpteenth glass table or drywall, characters could all of a sudden survive almost anything. Hobbs and Shaw takes that franchise evolution and completely dials it up to unseen heights. The dick jokes are more frequent, Hobbs and Shaw are capable of doing anything, and they are framed and written as muscular punching bags. Showing no signs of wear and tear (which makes sense with THEIR mandated expectations for their roles in these movies. Something Tarantino basically predicted just a week ago in his movie. Oh the irony...) against anything thrown their way, and the action they’re apart of is void of excitement. When the cars or transforming motorcycles are more prominent in the action, those sequences are much more exciting. The cars do and survive crazy things, Hobbs grabs a bad guy from inside the car and basically kills him, and they turn into superheroes. At the core of that is still this underlying drive to be about building a family around yourself. To surround yourself with people with mutual interests and likeness, and your best self emerges. The problem is that these humans doing insane, superhuman stunts does not compliment this intimate, dramatic core of this franchise.
In many ways, the lesser half of the famed 2014 John Wick, David Leitch directs this film with the intent of channeling the intentionally cheesy action films of the pre-2000s. Filled with overflowing sweat glands, shiny muscles, and crazy action topped off with one liners. We’re all familiar with those films, but why this film fails to achieve that with success, is because it technically doesn’t commit to being over the top. Sure, the franchise has jumped the shark, but it still hasn’t fully committed to being completely stupid. Especially when the third act visualizes that war between the rooted and manufactured, and it’s still concerned with those serious family moments. If this film ditched that, or drew less attention to it, this would have been the exact type of late Summer fun I desperately needed.
Instead, it’s machismo men are painfully unfunny and lacking in chemistry, the action (as I mentioned) is lacking in excitement, and it’s humor is a repetitive droning of pop culture references and the “Best Of” your thirteen year-old cousin Kyle’s book of jokes. I’m still genuinely surprised that The Rock and Statham lacked any sort of chemistry as lead characters. Their scene in the prison in Fate 8 was one of the better parts of an otherwise bad movie, but this reeks of a syndrome similar to The Minions. Characters that work well as side characters, but there isn’t enough content worth upgrading them to a feature length picture. Which is evidenced by the fact that they had to manufacture repetitive jokes to try and give them some likable characteristics, but they’re really just two unlikable guys with no reason to root for them. Especially when one of them was the antagonist in a previous entry, but hey, he loves his Mom so it’s okay to forgive him. *shoulder shrug*
This is a review that’s probably gone on for far too long, similar to the film I’m talking about, but this is a franchise that has the potential of being great as it has been before. It’s frustrating wanting to love a movie that channels self-aware cheese that you are capable of enjoying, but the entire experience is offset by the fact that it wants to be dopey, but it also wants to be serious. It’s blended that before and are two tones that can merge and not collide, but now that the franchise has jumped every shark, a part of me sees it’s gleeful intentions but it can’t let go of the anchor that’s holding them back. If they want to be the popcorn bag oozing with butter, then be that commentary on raw strength versus evolved technology, but stop drawing attention to it. That’s what separates those wacky, silly big muscle adventures of the Stallone/Schwarzenegger era, from movies like this. A movie that revels in the vision of what it wants to be, but can’t escape the shadow of it’s own shortcomings. If they don’t want to fully commit to the wacky nature of these adventures, then go back to being more small scale and less cataclysmic. Especially for a spin-off film. A movie that is at it’s best when it slows down and can be slightly amusing during those moments. Instead it’s a movie that tries way too hard to be the funny kid in class, but it’s an obnoxious attempt that ends with a free trip to the principal’s office and the entire class forced to write an essay due the next day. Thanks a lot Chad.
Hobbs and Shaw gets a 35/100