After eight installments and countless action sequences, the Fast and Furious franchise
has its first spinoff in Hobbs & Shaw.
Now that we've seen everything this movie has to offer, we're here to give you the lowdown
on the best, and worst, things in this chapter of the saga.
Every installment of the Fast & Furious franchise has gotten bigger, wilder, and more action-packed
than the ones before it.
For everyone worried that the absence of Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto and his "family"
would lead to a lull in the action, Hobbs & Shaw keeps the fists flying and the cars
racing.
Every single major set piece in the film feels bigger than the last, as Hobbs and Shaw punch,
kick, and bicker their way across the globe.
Anyone familiar with director David Leitch's cinematic output could have expected that
the former stuntman would put together all sorts of over-the-top action sequences, but
the co-director of John Wick easily surpasses all expectations.
There's a palpable sense of glee at the heart of Hobbs & Shaw, as if Leitch and his team
can't believe they get to create some of the wacky stunts they're paid to make.
There are cameos aplenty in Hobbs & Shaw: WWE wrestler, and Dwayne Johnson's real-life
cousin, Roman Reigns appears as one of the Hobbs brothers.
Kevin Hart, appearing on screen once again with his former Central Intelligence co-star
Johnson, appears in the film as Dinkley, an over-eager air marshal.
Catastrophe and Deadpool 2 star Rob Delaney appears as agent Loeb.
Leitch even manages to use his pull as the director of Deadpool 2 to bring in Ryan Reynolds
as agent Locke.
While it's a delight to see so many talented comedic actors, and their appearances provide
some of the funniest parts of the film, unfortunately they also slow the pacing down to a crawl.
Many of the scenes they appear in drag on way too long, and seemingly exist in the final
cut just to showcase the A-list talent that the film attracted.
As funny as Hart, Reynolds, and Delaney are, their appearances distract from the film more
than they benefit it.
While some of the cameos in Hobbs & Shaw drag on a touch too long, Dame Helen Mirren's appearance
as Queenie Shaw feels far, far too short.
It's a source of near constant delight that Mirren, one of the greatest and most venerated
actresses working today, has decided to spend her time as a trash-talking criminal in the
Fast & Furious franchise.
In Hobbs & Shaw, Queenie is incarcerated for unknown reasons, visited occasionally by her
son, and biding her time until she feels like breaking out.
The credits scene implies a prison break for the Shaw matriarch, so there's plenty of room
to hope that Mirren will continue to delight in whatever future installments she appears
in.
Vanessa Kirby, who plays Hattie Shaw, is 31 years old.
Hattie's brother in the film, Deckard, is played by Jason Statham, who is 52.
Throughout the film, we see flashbacks to the two of them as con artist kids, and they
look to be about the same age…so how old is Hattie Shaw supposed to be?
It's a fairly consistent aspect of action movies to have a massive difference in age
between the male and female co-stars, but it's distracting to have Hobbs & Shaw position
Kirby as more or less the same age as Statham and Johnson.
There's even an ongoing flirtation between Hattie and Hobbs that ultimately leads to
a kiss between the two, and Dwayne Johnson is 47.
"My kind of girl!"
"I see what you're doing.
Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Of course I think you're stupid."
Is Kirby playing a character at least a decade older than her actual age?
Or is Hattie in her early 30s, too?
Does it even matter?
After all, Kirby also smooched 57-year-old Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Fallout,
so her Hobbs & Shaw casting might be just to set up another stereotypical May-December
action movie romance.
Hobbs & Shaw takes plenty of opportunities to showcase the two muscular men at odds and
working together, and it's a delight nearly the entire time.
Whether it's showcasing how the two go about their very different days in a color-coded
split-screen or seeing them kick butt together, their odd couple chemistry is a hoot.
It's also an aspect of the Fast & Furious franchise that has been missing for a while.
2 Fast 2 Furious briefly presents Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson as conflicted, equally tough
partners, but that scenario barely lasts for the length of the film before Walker's character
Brian clearly becomes the leader.
Furthermore, Brian and Dom's brotherly rivalry in subsequent movies never really has the
serious energy that you need to get invested in who's the faster or more furious of the
two.
However, Hobbs and Shaw spend the whole movie trading barbs, punches, and dirty looks.
When they finally team up for the climactic fight, it feels earned and satisfying.
While the film stays pretty thematically true to the past few iterations of the Fast & Furious
franchise, Hobbs & Shaw still feels removed from the main run of films.
Besides a quick line of dialogue referencing Kurt Russell's Mr. Nobody and some use of
nitrous in the climax, the filmmakers don't really seem interested in making Hobbs & Shaw
much of a Fast & Furious film.
In a vacuum, that's perfectly reasonable.
Leitch has said that there's plenty of room for sequels here, and keeping the focus on
the two leading men and mostly new characters is a good way to keep that potential open.
Still, in terms of feeling like the same universe and the same characters we've seen before,
Hobbs & Shaw could easily be an entirely different film outside of the Fast & Furious franchise.
With Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel reportedly at each other's throats on the set of Fate
of the Furious, and Hobbs & Shaw seeming more and more like a way to keep Johnson involved
in the franchise without stepping on Diesel's toes, the film's uneven tone and relationship
to its parent franchise feels even stranger.
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