Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw review – a fervently brainless delight
Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham do battle with Idris Elba’s cyborg as the mega-franchise spins off into ludicrous abandon
This latest iteration of the Fast and Furious franchise is unexpectedly fun, spinning off characters played by Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham from the seventh and eighth films. It gives us a fair bit of gonzo action, a hair-raising London chase scene, some transatlantic alpha-male squabbling, a cheerfully silly plot MacGuffin – and for the first two thirds the whole thing hums like a hi-tech top. The movie is a bit overextended, and the action runs out of steam in the final battle, but it delivers some bangs and laughs for your buck.
The mountainous Johnson plays a tough federal agent who likes philosophy, reads Nietzsche, is called Hobbs and has a CIA handler called Lock! (I assume Lock’s name is spelt without an E or the gag wouldn’t be consistent with Hobbs, but it isn’t easy to tell because Lock, played by Ryan Reynolds, appears to be uncredited.) Hobbs is unwillingly teamed up with his old frenemy Shaw (Statham) and together they have to take down Brixton, a bionic cyborg played by Idris Elba.