I may be repeating myself, but with Hobbs and Shaw, the good news is we get more of the same old, same old with this franchise’s spinoff. The bad news? See good news.
Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham return as the titular characters who are reluctantly teamed up to take down a rogue agent (Idris Elba) who has cybernetic implants and he carries a virus that will wipe out the world. Elba is basically this movie’s version of the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
Vinessa Shaw costars as a fellow agent Statham’s sister joins them in the pursuit of Elba after he framed her for killing her own team. This subplot serves to fuel only wisecracking dialogue between Johnson and Statham because the former will inevitably be falling for her.
Johnson and Statham do display some muscle-bound chemistry as they’re put in one gloriously over-the-top action sequence after another even though some of them would probably kill the Avengers.
When they’re not busy dodging bullets or even giant cars thrown their way, they’re busy quipping one-liner after one-liner and that might be enough for some audiences.
As for me, I said in my review of The Fate of the Furious that in the next movie, it wouldn’t hurt if the action was actually scaled down. Apparently, the filmmakers ignored that sentiment.
Hobbs and Shaw does do for the F&F series what Bumblebee did for Transformers: It wasn’t a movie we wanted or even asked for, but we got it anyway and it’s dumb, silly fun.
I think for Fast 9, it might be best to let the characters go up against Tom Cruise and the Mission: Impossible series to see which one can go bat-crap insane with their action.
Grade: B
(Rated PG-13 for prolonged sequences of action and violence, suggestive material and some strong language.)
