Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

A spin-off that could have taken a step aside and "grounded" the franchise from overblown CGI escapades that squander the undeniable testosterone potential, into less overblown macho action with a top-notch central duo that has a workable "dude bro" chemistry between them. It could have been a blockbuster in the style of Tango & Cash. The result, however, is a behemoth with cyborgs, Transformers bikes, programmable viruses, even more overblown scenes with a green screen behind Rock and Statham, Spectre/Hydra and an overblown running time. This is G.I. Joe III more than anything. And on top of that, the central duo, whom the filmmakers let squirm in one "I've got bigger balls than you" position for the entire film, they are (childishly) funny at first, but they squander it over the course of more than two hours. Still, it has a few solid moments, a few glimpses of guilty pleasure scenes and especially in the first half it moves along, before things get good for an hour in Russia and Samoa. (08/05/2019)

An Extremely entertaining, action-packed, nitro-boosted joyride. The B-movie plot interspersed with over-the top-action scenes, with a designer virus and a lone bad guy who values nothing more than good old friendship and family, is no surprise in this franchise. Diesel style. Leitch is aware of that this is essentially a B-movie, so he grabs it by the udders and milks its absurdities for all they're worth. Statham and Johnson’s well-honed one-liners are like something straight out of the '80s. The kinetic and clear-cut action pays respect to the old school, even though it’s upgraded like Idris Elba, who played a black Superman with unbelievable verve. The time flies by as we are taken to great locations and the cameos are the icing on the cake. Vanessa Kirby has style and at the end the whole thing cries out loud for a sequel. And I say yes to that. ... it melts their guts. She’s already nine years old, she’s ready to hear things like that. (07/31/2019)

Is it just me that feels like A-list popcorn cinema is getting more and more dimwitted? Kudos to the exceptions, like Christopher Nolan, who have set the bar high and are not about to lower it. At the opposite pole is this horrible trainwreck, like written by five-year old boys, starting with the futile humour, zero chemistry between the main actors, ending with the five thousandth or so variation on a stolen planet-wide deadly virus (again?) and an upgraded human terminator who has wandered in from another genre – some sci-fi Asylum production. And, to top it all off, an indulgent, smiling Ryan Reynolds and with him, the stupid Kevin Hart. Nobody laughed in the whole cinema, nobody, even though the filmmakers were smashing their jokes on your face like stinking socks and screaming at you: “Laugh! This is funny!!!” Well, sorry, scriptwriting impotents, I didn’t have any fun. (08/07/2019)

Are the screenwriters and director really more than 15 years old? I can't really believe that, or that the same David Leitch shot John Wick. Of course, the Fast and Furious series is also getting faster, more frantic and more and more ridiculous, but at least it's fun. Hobbs and Shaw didn't amuse me much except for in a few scenes. (09/05/2021)

Hollywood finally reached the level of Hong Kong, though only in the category of action comedies with a freely episodic screenplay. So, there will be variety-show cameos and a screenplay created through brainstorming and jumping across genres without structure. Except it is a shame that instead of real action attractions, we only have video game-style CGI mirages. The question remains as to whether the filmmakers should be cursed for engaging in futility according to western norms, or if we should praise them for creating a perfect product for the Chinese market, where precisely this sort of thing has the greatest success. Nevertheless, it is commendable that the producers finally cut out the weakest and most laughable part of the whole franchise, i.e. Vin Diesel, though the blather about family remained, only this time it is interspersed with more sequences of boring dick-measuring contests that do not have the slightest spark of real homoerotic tension. But perhaps David Leitch made enough money with this job to be able to shoot something proper again someday. (04/30/2020)