Fast And Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw

After the last Fast and Furious film and the recent Mission Impossible Fallout I thought the evolution of the action movie had reach it's zenith. Happily, I am once again proven wrong. This is a high energy quick cut action movie machine. I might just be at the age when movies like Hobbs and Shaw exhaust me.

Hobbes and Shaw is a brilliant action movie, family drama, buddy flick and stunt extravaganza. With The Rock, Jason Statham and Idris Elba you have every element you need to entertain the hell out of an audience for two hours. Those three are larger than life already and to put them in a film where they are constantly in conflict with each other is a gift from the action movie gods. But that is all part of the dichotomy of this film. It wants to be all things to all people.

It's also a chore to watch at times. I feel like I have been bashed over the head like this before with these actors.

You can tell the entire plot from the trailer and that is all you need to know.



The stunts and the humor are the real stars here. It's a whole lot of fun watching everyone chase each other around the world until the final battle comes to Hawaii. But the endless snarky banter between two guys that respect each other gets old fast. Plus does the fact that The Rock always has to have a young daughter so her life can be put in danger late into the film.

Vanessa Kirby is capable and deadly cute as Shaw's sister who is carrying a deadly virus. I am a sucker for that overbite.

The stunts of course are over the top as you would expect from this franchise and no one important gets so much as a scratch or a loose tooth no matter how many times they are punched in the face. Every drives without seatbelts and despite going through exploding buildings they receive not so much as a scratch. And every vehicles works until it is suppose to break down. And every flying car lands just where it's suppose to land so everyone can fight on a moving truck or other flat moving surface.

I was interested to see how they would take down 'Black Superman' the villain of the piece played with flair by Edris Elba. I still think he would have made a great James Bond when that was a 'thing'.

Then Kevin Hart shows up when his character is needed the most. Other fun actors like Ryan Reynolds show up when they need to be there as well. It's all very calculated as it's designed to be.

 

The Haka scene is very cool as all Haka scenes are.

 

The only problem I have with these films is that fight choreography and stunt pieces have because so huge and over the top that they come to dominate the entire film. You think this would be a good thing but in this case it's too much of a good thing. A few less amazing stunts that we have seen before and more of the really imaginative stuff that dazzles should have been the model this film followed. But it tossed in everything so the action machinery would never end. So while there is something going on all the time, there is no time for anything more than the bare bones of a story and next to no character development. Nothing sticks with me and I a forgetting whole parts of this movie as the seconds go by. Maybe that's just me getting old.

I am watching and I still can't figure out the plot because it doesn't matter. This film is best consumed over a few days. It's exhausting and stupid like all movies of this type should be.

I feel we have been to this well many times before.