Hobbs and Shaw
How can you figure out to save the fate of the world if you can’t even figure out how to get along with each other? Well, when it was all said and done, these two co-star protagonists (Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham) realize the latter must be done for the world to be safe in Hobbs and Shaw.
A spinoff from the Fast and Furious family of movies, this action-packed flick has all the bells and whistles from its lineage of films, which translates into “over the top.” It’s good to know that going in. Nothing wrong with that, but just don’t be surprised when you see a helicopter being pulled down by four mammoth, nitro-juiced off-road vehicles on the fringe of a cliff near the coast of Samoa. Or when you see a beautiful blue McLaren 720S – a dream ride for many – getting beat up and shot at on the streets of London, which sounds more like a nightmare for car enthusiasts – or anyone. Damn, such a waste.
But like in true Fast and Furious fashion: Vroom, vroom will usually lead to boom, boom.
Hobbs, played by Johnson, and Shaw, played by Statham, bring their antics and grudges from the previous hijinks in The Fate and the Furious. The two team up again, begrudgingly, to take down the super, meta-human Brixton Lorr, played by Idris Elba. It’s not an easy task, but what really is anymore? Elba does a great job of playing the villain, who ironically has some redeeming qualities for a bad guy, Stringer Bell, anyone?
A big part of the movie focuses on each of the main character’s family. Fans get a glimpse of Hobbs’ back story and family – his daughter, brother and mother. While we see Shaw’s relationship with his sister (Vanessa Kirby) and mother (Helen Mirren).
The storyline isn’t the greatest; there are holes bigger than the movie’s $200 million budget. Hours after seeing it, I’m still figuring out how could this actually happen. Probably should stop rationalizing it and focus on how Statham can take down a half-dozen bad-ass mercenaries without firing a weapon. Yeah, gotta love it.
At times, with the British twangs of Statham and Elba, captions would have helped, but we aren’t here to hear the dialogue word for word; give us screeching sounds of cars and trucks and explosive emits from them crashing.
Ultimately, it’s a mashup of Step Brothers and Robocop with a mix of Fast and Furious blended in the middle. The banter between Statham and the Rock proved to be the real explosion of the movie. They were literally finishing each other’s lines at the expense of some barbs of each other’s manhood.
There are also references to other Hollywood classics, including the Terminator, Italian Job, Superman, and Harry Potter, but the highlight is the talk revolving around Game of Thrones. Not sure if it was written in the script or said off the cuff, either way, it will make you smile if you’ve seen the HBO masterpiece. Gotta bend the knee to them for this, Jon Snow.
It’s a late-summer release for a blockbuster, but it’s worth a watch, especially for the one-liners and the “small” cameo from an on-screen cohort of The Rock. Before your summer vacation ends in the next few weeks, you should check out Hobbs and Shaw to get your fix of high-end explosives speeding through the roadways of locales all over the world, which include London, Moscow, Ukraine and the Samoan Islands. So, sit back, chill and watch the world being saved one blown-up car and one joke at a time.
7/10
by Ram Luthra
