Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw

“Look at me. I’m black Superman.”

Filmology Rating: 2 out of 4

Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw has a long and complicated title so that the Chinese demographic knows that it's a 'Fast and Furious' film. It stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jason Statham and all they have to do is learn to work as a team to punch Idris Elba. They forget about the imaginary plot halfway through the film. 

As someone who was asking for this film for a while, it feels very hypocritical to say that these two characters should strictly be a part of the main franchise-films now. The trailer was the best part of this film. 

The main issue with this film is that it did too much "wink wink." I believe, the charm of a film like 'Once Upon a Time In...Hollywood ' is that the film never winks at you. Everything is on a level of realism, so when over-the-top schlock happens, it's hilarious and fun. It's called juxtaposition. But when your entire movie is nothing but structure-less action scenes with a plot that's solely there to bridge action sequences and two characters who don't even get a scratch on them, it's pretty boring. It's just a flat line; there are no "highs and lows." Not to mention the runtime that's too long. 

When it comes to an action scene, usually there is structure. Why is that there? It's to make the action scene exciting. In 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' the film usually follows a "winning, losing, won" action sequence structure. It's where a character starts the fight winning, then they get beaten up a lot and look to be losing, then barely come out on top at the end. It makes for an exciting sequence. The Battle of Helm's Deep in 'The Two Towers' has this structure, the 'MI: Fallout' bathroom fight scene has this structure; it's pretty much everywhere. 'Hobbs and Shaw' is nothing but structure-less action that is too cartoonish to care about. 

In 'Mission Impossible' the action scenes are very over-the-top, but Tom Cruise is actually doing them. Even in a Marvel movie, we see characters get beaten up and actually bleed; they take punches. In 'Hobbs and Shaw', The Rock and Jason Statham have a contract that says they can only be punched a certain amount of times to keep their egos inflated.

Rocky, Indiana Jones, and Ethan Hunt get beaten up so much. But the excitement comes from the fact that they always get up after being knocked down. It makes them the underdog which makes them likeable. I just love watching a movie where two guys, who can't even be punched more than three times, go from action scene to action scene, on a green screen, and suffer zero damage for over two hours.

There are two very gratuitous cameos that are supposed to be funny. They are both utterly annoying, at this point, and serve zero purpose other than "Oh, look who it is!" A great way to spend the production budget, I'm sure. 

This film attempts comedy several times that rarely works. Some banter or over-the-top action scenes are mildly humorous, but a lot of this film's comedy stems from putting hats on top of hats (drawing out your joke and calling attention to it). Every scene transition is also accompanied by a music-video-esc montage which are almost laughable. 

Hobbs isn't even Hobbs anymore. The Rock used to have great facial hair in the previous films that made him look much cooler. In this, he's clean-shaven and it just looks like The Rock. 
The best part about this film is Idris Elba as "Black Superman." He is a super soldier who is going after Hobbs and Shaw. Imagine Captain America versus two ordinary guys. Who would win? Well, not in this film!

The film also attempts to stem together some kind of family background for Hobbs and Shaw and it almost feels like a reshoot. The beginning of the film they talk about their family, then it's abandoned for ninety minutes until it's convenient in the film for The Rock to bring it up again; it's such an afterthought. 

I get it though, this is a big, dumb action movie and I shouldn't expect more. However, I'm someone who really liked 'Fast and Furious 6.' There are films in this franchise I despise and some I like. I cannot believe I'm saying this, but Hobbs and Shaw should exclusively be side characters in the main franchise. They work better as characters who work in tandem with the rest of the team. This is the equivalent of making a Lando movie. 

This film is simply too long and the pacing is just plenty of stop-and-go. In fact, given how loose of a plot this film has, it shouldn't even be labeled as a "film." This is an amusement park ride. It's absolute perfunctory that is also boring.

Rating: Skip It

-Nolan