By John Liu
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
For Fast and Furious fans who are waiting for FF9, Hobbs and Shaw will keep you satisfied until its release next year. If you are not up to date with the FF series, Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw fought against each other, but put aside their differences to save the world with the rest of the FF crew. I will keep this review spoiler free, however, I will warn you this movie literally spoils the ending to Game of Thrones as a casual joke.
Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby), Deckard’s sister, is working with MI6 to steal a biological weapon named Snowflake. After successfully acquiring Snowflake, she is confronted by Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). Hattie boldly injects herself with Snowflake knowing it would lay dormant for 72 hours and manages to escape. As a result, Brixton kills the rest of her MI6 team and frames Hattie for it. We discover that Brixton is an enhanced cyborg controlled by Eteon, a mysterious terrorist organization. Deckard (Jason Statham) and Luke (Dwayne Johson) are assigned to find her and save the world. After Brixton fails to capture Hattie yet again, he receives upgrades and orders from a mysterious Eteon Director. Queenie Shaw (Helen Mirren), the Shaw family matriarch, is back to shed some light on Shaw’s family issues. Madam M (Eiza Gonzalez) is in the movie for 10 minutes. Luke and Deckard eventually find their way to Samoa just like the trailer shows. That is as much as I can tell without any spoilers, but it will all make sense when you watch the movie.
Why are Luke and Deckard in Samoa? Because they need the help of Luke’s brothers, Jonah (Cliff Curtis), Mateo (Joe Anoa’i aka Roman Reigns, WWE wrestler and Dwayne’s cousin), and three others. Sefina (Lori Pelenise Tuisano) plays the matriarch and is able to whip all her Hobb boys onto the same page. The silver lining is all the API actors get some decent screen time and qualify for a movie review in the Northwest Asian Weekly.
My main gripe is too many action cliches. There are a few times where all the good or bad guys get involved in the battle, just so a few guys can swoop in and steal the most important asset. The third act is just pure over-the-top action, and it could have been shortened. Other than the “Black Superman” quote, nothing Brixton said was very memorable. Luke and Deckard are not able to effectively hurt Brixton for the whole movie until the end. Of course, there is a final hand-to-hand combat battle with Luke and Deckard against Brixton, and it is underwhelming. It would have been nice if Hattie, who is kicking butt the whole movie, would be involved here.
Nope, she just so happens to be stuck dealing with her own issues.
The banter between Deckard and Luke is solid and had me laughing out loud many times and found their relationship heart-warming. It reminded me of Rush Hour between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. There are three great surprise cameos that are a lot of fun. I was not expecting any crazy plot twists or insane stories, and that is basically what I got. Be sure to stay all the way until the end of the credits to catch all the funny scenes. If you’re a Fast and Furious fan, then you are going to enjoy this movie.
John can be reached at john@nwasianweekly.com.