Hobbs & Shaw Has Just Enough Gas to Go Fast and Fun

Though the Fast & Furious franchise has certainly veered far off course from its humbler street-racing origins, it has remained a constant stream of thrills. Hobbs & Shaw is the first spinoff of the saga that sheds a few characters but keeps all the same themes: the aspects of physics-defying bombastic action and family tenderness so oddly thrown into the mix are all present and still just as strong. While the two leads are expected to carry a lot of weight in an ensemble-free action outing, they mostly have what it takes to keep this film on track despite it literally going off the rails.

Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Frank Masi/Universal Pictures

Without a crowded cast, we get to spend a bit more time fleshing out the rivalry of the two heroes. We get to know Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) as a single dad trying to balance his life raising his growing daughter while still beating up gangsters and terrorists to make a living. We get to know Shaw (Jason Statham) as a misfit criminal who occasionally does good-guy work for government agencies and visits his dear mom (Helen Mirren) in prison. They’re such a wonderfully mismatched pair that it should come as no surprise their superiors try to set them up on a mission together, only for them to greet each other with refusal and insults.

The mission is a fairly simple one not bogged down in too much exposition, which allows for plenty of heavy-breathing room for the unlikely duo to bicker. A rogue MI6 agent, Brixton Lorr (Idris Elba), is a cybernetic assassin working for a mysterious underground organization that wants to rule the world with cyborgs. Part of that plan involves tracking down a virus that will cull the weak to make way for the strong—a task assigned to the superpowered Lorr, who dubs himself a black Superman. (He doesn’t have the flight, heat vision, or ice breath, but hey, it’s not everyone who can battle Johnson and Statham at the same time.)

Idris Elba as “black Superman” Brixton Lorr. Daniel Smith/Universal Pictures

Getting involved with the mission is Shaw’s sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), acting as a carrier for the virus and a love interest for Hobbs. While Kirby does have some badass action sequences, her romance with Johnson seems about as standard as the car chases. And let’s face it: she’s the only thing holding Hobbs and Shaw back from being a couple themselves. They literally get up in each other’s faces over and over, and it seems like the only reason they don’t start making out is that someone stops them. That could be Hattie trying to make them focus, Lorr torturing them, or even a completely new character thrown into a scene to essentially bring their feuding moments to an end.

Vanessa Kirby as Hattie Shaw. Daniel Smith/Universal Pictures

However, because this is a Fast & Furious movie and a romance between Johnson and Statham would be too explosive for a film with exploding buildings and crashing cars, we know they won’t kiss, which makes the interruptions a thankful break. Part of the film’s problem is that the only conversations we get between the two are arguments and insults akin to what they expressed in Fate of the Furious. There’s not much to them past what we’ve seen before, and when carrying their shtick on for over two hours, their appeal is stretched pretty thin.

The action doesn’t let down, however, remaining as steadfastly grand as the previous films. Cars zip down narrow alleyways while motorcycles pursue. A power plant explodes, leading to a daring escape on cars and trucks smashing through factories. This all seems rather standard for the franchise, to the point that even Johnson and Statham seem to be having too much smirking fun throughout their mission. But then we get to Samoa, and the film takes a pleasingly outlandish turn—especially since it seems to switch gears briefly into a war epic, with Johnson leading Samoan warriors into battle with blunt weapons and fiery battle cries, as teased in the trailers. A strange sight for a Fast & Furious movie? Perhaps, but there’s an expected level of absurdity to these films, in which it seems like anything can happen. The very staging behind this sequence would be baffling if it weren’t for the even stranger aspect of the scene shifting from the darkness of night to the sunshine of day within less than 20 minutes.

Hobbs in action. Frank Masi/Universal Pictures

Hobbs & Shaw doesn’t exactly breathe new life into the F&F franchise, but it does have enough juice in its bombastic engines to still function as decent popcorn entertainment. The acting is fun, the action is intense, and the very spirit of keeping things all about the family is as welcoming as it is odd. Moving forward, however, I think this long-running saga needs a little something extra to reach the next level of being over-the-top. And when the two leads are just a few words and inches away from making out, having used up nearly all their insults, there’s only one way to take that relationship to the next level.