Review: Hobbs And Shaw

Hobbs and Shaw is a rousing, fast-paced, over the top action/buddy film that really rouses the senses and delivers tons of fun. It is based on two characters from the Fast and Furious franchise.

Hobbs (played for all its’ worth by Dwayne  (The Rock) Johnson is a rough, tough, brawny former DHS agent who likes to work alone. Shaw (Jason Statham) is a smaller, but savvy MI 6 agent who also likes to work alone and is fearless and very adept with fast karate kicks and elbow chops, is his own person and is capable of taking on many attackers at once – just like Hobbs.

Idris Elba plays Brixton, a leather-clad man genetically enhanced by an unseen  foreign power that makes him super bad, super strong and impervious to bullets. He wants to steal a virus that can liquefy the organs of most people on the planet. He wants to push evolution along, but he’s temporarily thwarted when Shaw’s sister also a British MI 6 agent, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), who  is also quite capable of handling herself in dangerous  situations takes the virus and goes on the run injecting herself with  the potentially new virus that can also cure all diseases so bad guys can’t get it and reprogram  it into a weapon.

Hobbs and Shaw are recruited to retrieve her. Both these guys have worked and tangled together before and can’t stand each other as it is a clash of egos.

What follows is a hilarious tit-for-tat with each trying to outdo the other and hurling hilarious insulting barbs at each other while facing extreme danger to rescue Hattie who is also taking care of herself quite adeptly too with her jumping, kicking and quick action movements.

Johnson, Statham and Kirby become a trio, and it’s a pleasure to follow them all over the globe. Along the way, there are a handful of action sequences that are off-the-charts insane. At one point, Johnson jumps out of a skyscraper, without a parachute, and falls about 20 stories before landing on a guy who is lowering himself on cables. Oh, but that’s not enough. Thirty seconds later, Johnson does it again.

Usually, chase scenes are boring. Not here. Statham drives under a truck. Elba crashes a motorcycle through the upper deck of a red London bus and lands on the other side. “Hobbs & Shaw” does all the usual things, but it does them in unusual ways. And it stays funny. In one scene, Hobbs goes back to his native Samoa and visits his mother. “Look at you,” she says. “All skin and bones.”

The action scenes are over the top, fantastic, breathtaking and not to be outdone. I’ve seen all 8 of the Fast and Furious movies and each time I see one with their outlandish creative and extremely dangerous stunts I say to myself, “How are they going to top this?” –  and they always manage to come up with something new. Hobbs and Shaw is no different.

Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson is the top paid and starring actor in Hollywood today coming out with several movies a year mostly all action and comedy films for kids of all ages and adults too.

Jason Statham has been around for at least 20 years now known for his Transporter series and appearing with Sylvester Stallone as his right-hand man in all three Expendable movies as well as several single movies over the years.

Check out the exciting trailer here: