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(film review) - Fast & Furious presents: Hobbs & Shaw

The F&F series has had its ups and downs.
When Tokyo Drift came out, putting a slight spin on the series where the franchise “drifts” and attempts to change direction, they needed something different and a change in pace.  It was when F&F5 (Fast Five) when Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson (Franchise Viagra) stepped into the fold and joined the franchise.  The F&F series got a lot better.

I’m not ashamed to say I’ve seen all of the F&F movies and Tokyo Drift was the worst of them all (It just wasn't as good).  But with some well written interwoven stories, the order the films coming out, is NOT the order you should view them which makes for interesting viewing.  But I say all of that to say this.  Branching out into a spin-off of the F&F franchise, like what Transformers done with Bumblebee, but failed on the title, this movie not only benefits from having Fast and Furious in the title, (because if you are a fan of the franchise, you know what to expect), but the movie also benefits from being as absurd, crazy, silly and unbelievable as the regular F&F movies and on top of all that, this film doesn't take itself seriously and is very funny and entertaining.

Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckhard Shaw (Jason Statham) are two completely different people who are very good at their respective jobs, are from two different worlds and they hate each other.  After the events of Fast & Furious 8, these two are paired up to stop a man named Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) who will stop at nothing to obtain a deadly virus that threatens to wipe out the human population (not that original, more Mission Impossible-esk).  However, things become a bit tricky when Deckard's sister (Vanessa Kirby) is involved somehow and caught in the mix of it all.  Our two "heroes" have to "play nice" with one another in order to achieve their goal, Stop Brixton!

How do you think this film would play out by watching the trailer below? The one you've already seen or the many you have seen before watching this?  Or, if you have seen the latest few F&F movies but not seen this trailer, what are your thoughts? Yes, it plays exactly how you thought.  It does exactly what it says on the tin and then some - only because it was a little bit long in the tooth.  But with the surprise cameo or involvement of 2-3 other characters played by well known actors, this movie treads from being your normal F&F type of movie with a few laughs and inhumanly courageous death-defying stunts and lunacy to all of that and a barrel of insanely funny comedy moment's that may have you wet yourself or die of laughter.  They even threw in a few known wrestlers.

The acting for this type of movie by these quality actors are very good, as expected and as to be expected (no oscars here).  The story, meh..who cares!?! The villain Top-Notch, especially how Idris plays him, plus his name is BRIXTON!!! (I'm from London England, Brixton is literally down the road. [It's a place, look it up] But it's a wonder why he never chose any other "close-to-home, towns).  The chemistry between Dwayne and Jason is pretty much unrivalled and their banter, they have banter for days.  The visuals are excellent especially the fighting scenes.  There is a shot where the rock has a fight very early on involving, a woman...excellent, visually. I'm just hoping there were no strings involved.  But then the ending fighting scene, visually, also stunning.  I didn't dig the ending THAT much and how it ended, but it was interesting how they left it, definitely open for a sequel....as they do in Hollywood.  I guess when they do their female spin-off and should that do well...they would have successfully milked the cow by the tit and produce liquid gold.  Let's just hope it's more quality than quantity before they destroy themselves over money.

If you are a fan of the franchise this is a definite must watch.  But you would need to know that Vin Diesel's character or better yet Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, DO NOT GET ALONG AT ALL!!! So with that said, you can't expect to see Dominic appear in the Hobbs & Shaw spin-offs, unless they squash their beef.
However you can expand the universe outwards and involve other characters and have many different mini franchises under one franchise. I believe that's possible.

Enjoy! If this is your kind of thing.




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