Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jason Statham, Vanessa Kirby, Idris Elba, Eddie Marsan, Eiza González, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Hart, Helen Mirren

(6-Good Film)

Ridiculous. Over-the-top. Fun.

Remember when the Fast and the Furious franchise was about stealing cars? At some point, the Fast and the Furious adventures merged with James bond-like sci-fi and end-of-the-world scenarios and, in my opinion, they’re all better for it. Hobbs and Shaw is a spinoff of the last Fast and the Furious with superhuman heroes Luke Hobbs (Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Statham) teaming up to save the world despite not liking each other. They’ll have to put aside their antagonism in order to help Shaw’s sister, Hattie (Kirby), herself a British spy, who’s carrying a catastrophic virus that a mysterious agency known as Eteon is after. Idris Elba lends some gravitas to his fairly silly role as Brixton Lore, part-robotic villain and mercenary for Eteon. Hobbs and Shaw is clearly setting up its own franchise and I’m down with that. The leads were the best thing about the last Fast and the Furious film and carry that chemistry into this one. Physics fly out the window pretty fast in this movie (Hobbs somehow lassos a metal chain around a plane in midair) but once you let that go, you can have a pretty good time. The big issue for me is the over-use of CGI as opposed to stunt work which the director, David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde) has shown a great talent for.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(668)