Is Hobbs and Shaw the next generation of Fast & Furious? (review)
I’ve heard mixed reviews about The Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw. At first, I wasn’t going to watch it. In my humble opinion, the Fast and Furious franchise is nearing the end of its life and should have left me crying when Brian O’Conner road off into the sunset.
However, I understand that some people don’t share that opinion and are excited to expand the Fast and Furious franchise. That brings up to Hobbs and Shaw.
I am very surprised that in this movie, there are no character cameos from other Fast and Furious movies. I would of at least expected Vin Diesel to be around in some form. But there were no winks to the other characters in Fast and Furious even existing in this world.
That being said, it was an entertaining movie. At times it felt like this movie was based on Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson life and they just added a little fiction to throw viewers off the scent.
Winks to ‘the people’s eyebrow’, mentions of clanging and banging, eating a huge stack of pancakes on a cheat day, and going back to Samoa. It all seems very Dwayne Johnson. However, Shaw’s (Jason Statham) character was pretty straight forward.
The best part of the movie may have been the one-liners. They were terrible at times but funny. Plus, we were treated to cameos from Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart. And, the funniest scene of the movie had to be the moment when Hobbs and Shaw were infiltrating the lair of the big bad and had to use the enemies face to gain access.
Moments from this scene were used in the trailer, but I legitimately belly laughed through the entire scene.
So what about the story?
Shaw’s sister (Hattie) is in MI6 and transporting a dangerous virus that could wipe out the world. Brixton (Idris Alba), a former mate of Shaw’s, attacks her unit to retrieve the virus for the big bad but fails because Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) injects the virus in herself to prevent him from getting it.
Hattie becomes a person of interest because the narrative is that she stole the virus and killed her unit. Hobbs and Shaw are deployed by their agencies to catch her and rectify the situation.
They end up meeting with a Russian scientist who tells them how to remove the virus. But the technology gets broken in an effort to escape the lair of the big bad. They end up going to Samoa because Hobbs’ brother is a tech genius. He fixes the machine and begins the virus extraction just in time for the enemies to attack the village.
There is a huge fight scene and a car chase which brings Hobbs, Shaw, Hattie, and Brixton face to face in a final battle. Brixton ends up losing even though technically he should have one. The big bad fries his brain, he falls off a cliff, and the heroes save the day.
Sequel and Fast & Furious Future
I’ve heard there will be a sequel to this movie. That makes sense because we never find out who Brixton’s boss is. Plus, I hated the way Idris’ character went out. Perhaps Brixton will come back as an ally in the next movie. It’s happened before in the franchise.
The movie is an action blockbuster. It did what it was supposed to do. It gave us an action-packed movie with funny moments. In my opinion, it hasn’t captured the magic of the original series. But, if Fast & Furious is finishing up, maybe Hobbs and Shaw’s buddy relationship will be a good replacement.
