So… Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw is a spinoff movie. It’s kind of like a Star Wars Story… an offshoot story from the main Vin Diesel saga… or something. Like it really matters. Moving on.
So Hobbs and Show features Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprising their rolls from the past few Fast and Furious movies. They are basically on opposite sides of the law (or something) and they have to work together to find Shaw’s sister who has injected herself with an unreleased plague (or something). Idris Elba plays a genocidal cybernetic supersoldier who wants the virus to wipe out the weak and leave only the strong (or something).
Razzle-Dazzle-Rootbeer none of this really matters. This is a big dumb throwback to 80s and 90s action flicks and it’s pretty unapologetic about it. So all that really matters is whether its a decent enough big dumb action movie. And… it kind of is. It’s not a great actioner but it’s not really boring either. It’s reasonably fast paced and reasonably energetic and reasonably funny. All that “reasonably” means, however, is that I thought it needed to be just a hair more energetic, the action a hair more propulsive.
But, hey, razzle-dazzle-rootbeer they wind up in Samoa for a big showdown and now I know how a native pronounces Samoa. So that’s a day’s worth of learning on an otherwise intentionally dim project. And, hey, good on Dwayne Johnson for producing a movie set in Samoa (filmed in Hawaii but who’s counting). Dwayne wants to represent his roots and has the muscle (har) to do it, then that’s how you do it.
So, yeah, you probably already know if you aren’t going to see it (and no amount of text I write is going to change your mind). For those who might want to see this flick, sure, it’s worth seeing. It’s exactly what they are advertising so no shocker on the ridiculous stunts and visual FX. They promised big car chases and fights against a robot man in a mash-up of (ironically) a XXX movie (the Vin Diesel series) and a Fast and Furious movie and they deliver. <shrug>.
Score: 81