The Fast and Furious franchise is something that for years and years I absolutely loathed. I couldn’t stand anything about it and I hated every movie they put out. This was until a couple years ago when I rewatched all of them with a mind of just taking them for what they are – mindless dumb fun with cars, explosions and Vin Diesel beating people up.
What drew me back into the franchise initially was my general love for The Rock and Jason Statham and my willingness to watch anything they have ever been in coupled with my rule that “The Rock makes everything he is in 100% better”.
So you can imagine I was pretty stoked when Hobbs and Shaw was announced and I got a whole movie that would just focus on my two favourite characters from the franchise… but is it any good?
My first reaction when leaving the cinema last night was… that film was so dumb and I loved every minute of it.
Hobbs and Shaw takes everything that makes the Fast and Furious films ridiculous and amps it up to 11, even the general plot is so dumb that it makes the Mission Impossible 2 storyline look tame by comparison and that’s my usual benchmark for a film to balance the super dumb/fun factor.
Without spoiling the plot for the film too much the general plotline is that Shaw’s sister was on a mission to retrieve a virus that can be coded to wipe out specific DNA’s with a 100% mortality rate. The mission goes to shit so she does the only logical thing and grabs the canister and runs injects herself with the virus and legs it. THEEEEN the CIA call in Hobbs and Shaw to sort it all out… despite being very clear that they know the two people don’t work together. They are then relentlessly chased by Idris Elba who plays a cybernetically enhance super soldier and refers to himself as “Black Superman”.
Look I told you it was dumb and you know what? That’s absolutely fine because it knows that it it’s a stupid film and it’s there to make you sit in the cinema and eat a load of popcorn and have fun watching The Rock punch things and drive about.
An honorable mention from me here is the amount of Cameos in the film from people that are just friends with The Rock or director David Leitch. It’s something that added to that extra level of fun and made the film surprise me in different ways as it went on… with this in mind I am not going to say who the cameos were as you should experience this first hand for yourself.
Suffice to say, I had a lot of fun with Hobbs and Shaw. Is it a good film? Is it fuck. Should you go and see the film anyway because you like having fun? Fuck YEAH. So I have been inspired by the films attitude of breaking rules and I am going to give Hobbs and Shaw 2 different scores from this review and they are as follows:
Film Critic Score: 7/10 it was an good fun film to watch but lets face it, its not going to win an Oscar.
Fun Score: 9/10 FUCK YEAH ITS NOT GOING TO WIN AN OSCAR and it doesn’t need too. Hobbs and Shaw exists to make people have fun and you know what I had an absolute blast watching this movie and would happily sit through it 2 or 3 more times.