Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw: Movie Review

With a stunning portfolio from Director David Leitch, we had high hopes that "Hobbs & Shaw" would turn out to be great against our expectations. But sadly, our initial feelings towards the first spin-off for the "The Fast and The Furious" franchise turned out to be oh-so-true - "Hobbs & Shaw" is a bloated action piece with little or no substance.

Ever since Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Shaw (Jason Statham) first faced off, the duo never liked each other and have swapped smack talk and body blows as the two alpha males proves who is better. But when a new biological weapon has gone missing, the two sworn enemies are forced to join forces to look for a rogue MI6 agent Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) who authorities believe to be the culprit of the bio-heist. But things turn out to be truly complicated as the rogue agent is actually Shaw’s sister and even more chaotic when it is revealed that a cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist named Brixton (Idris Elba) is out to get Hattie. Once again, Hobbs and Shaw try to save the world from definite destruction.

Running at more than two hours long, "Hobbs & Shaw" definitely over-stayed its welcome. It tries too hard to have any semblance of substance by having an out-of-this-world narrative and unfortunately turned out to be an incoherent and bloated mess. Beyond the disappointing narrative, the film's action sequences was literally countless with a majority of the running time spent with an action scene in tow. Most of them were structured and shot well providing crisp and clear shots even with all the chaos but not all of them hit the mark with too much craziness or loop holes ruining the experience. There were times that actual human characters seem to survive without any broken bones literally breaking the laws of the universe. But beyond that fact, we found ourselves actually fatigued with the non-stop barrage of action sequences. And for fans of the "The Fast and The Furious" franchise, don't expect a heavy focus on car chases - this film had a different vibe to it and could have easily removed the association to the film franchise. What actually works for "Hobbs & Shaw" was the chemistry and banter between its leads Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. The volatile relationship between Hobbs and Shaw injected a lot of fun and comedy into a rather pedestrian film experience. The film also had some surprise cameos that had us laughing out loud. Overall, "Hobbs & Shaw" never felt right. It had amazing moments and set pieces but it was inconsistent with its delivery and never gels into a cohesive experience. It was poorly-written even for a no-nonsense action-packed film.

Rating: 2 and a half reels




Why you should watch it:
- the chemistry and banter between Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham was simply gold

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the narrative was poorly-written even for a no nonsense action film
- bloated and too long at more than two hours long