Everyone seems to remember watching Tokyo Drift, but don’t actually remember what happened in it, or what happened to Lucas Black’s career after he tried taking over for Diesel (maybe there WILL be a Sling Blade 2?). Whatever transpired behind the scenes, someone in a suit decided then that the whole format of the series had to change. Removed almost-entirely was the car culture and racing that was the original trilogy’s bread-and-butter; the original cast was brought back and references to “family” and “sticking together” were amped to 11; and every action scene seemed like it had to outdo the one before it. So birthed the “new generation” of F+F movies with the fourth one in 2009, BRILLIANTLY titled Fast & Furious, and the series stayed relatively consistent for a while. With the fifth (Fast Five) and sixth (Fast & Furious 6) movies in 2011 and 2013 respectively they stuck to Lin’s formula; brought back popular characters from the first three movies and shoehorned them together; and strung them all along in a shared-universe plot. 6 also introduced our titular team to Dwayne Johnson’s hard-as-nails cop Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s bad-guy-turned-good Deckard Shaw.
When Lin left the franchise and Saw creator James Wan was brought in to helm the seventh movie in 2015 (Furious 7), something didn’t seem right. Maybe some of the magic was gone? It HAD been over ten years at that point: maybe everyone was burnt out. I wondered how they could top the heist at the end of Fast Five and in 6 they had a climax that involved supercars and a moving airplane. Don’t get me wrong: the tank at the end of 7 was pretty cool, but everyone just seemed tired. The behind-the-scenes news that followed confirmed it: Mia was written out due to Brewster’s pregnancy; Paul Walker died during filming and he was written out; and Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson got into it because, well of course they did. Time keeps on slipping into the future, and the franchise was beginning to show signs of its shiny paint chipping away from weather damage. Why Wan took over the project in the first place is anyone’s guess (MONEY) but he did seem to have the smarts when he dropped Saw after the third movie.
And then The Fate of the Furious (Fast & Furious 8) came out in 2017 and I was done. It was a terrible movie. It went on FOREVER. It had BARELY any action scenes for its PREPOSTEROUS 2-hour-plus runtime, and the ones they did have seemed to go on and ON. What happened, F. Gary Gray? I’ve already mentioned Law Abiding Citizen but that movie was AWESOME! It has taken over for The Negotiator as the movie by which all your others will be judged. I watched 8 TWICE and I fell asleep TWICE at the remote-controlled Minis scene. If I’m passing out during an action scene IN AN ACTION MOVIE, then it sucks. Forget it.
NOW IT IS TIME FOR THE SPIN-OFFS, because who gives a shit about my opinion anyway? These movies have collectively made billions of dollars at the international box office. Movie 9 is already filming and coming out next year. Vin Diesel wants to make TEN of them. I GUARANTEE YOU THEY WILL BE IN SPACE BY THE LAST ONE. Because SPACE MAKES MONEY TOO. Ad Astra looks like Gravity with a dude. Speaking of dudes, we’ve got two of them this time and that’s it. Apparently the chemistry between Statham and The Rock was better then having a dozen popular actors in one room trying to upstage each-other, and it is. It is not as good as 6 (the Fast & Furious movie by which all others will be judged), and it was TOO LONG, but it was entertaining and it WILL MAKE MONEY. So THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ONE. JOY.
I have to write more? Haven’t I written enough? There is NOTHING in this movie you haven’t seen before, if not in the Fast & Furious franchise then somewhere else. Hobbs & Shaw hate each other but they have to work together. That means throwing insults back and forth at one-another and then alternately fist-bumping like bros. Both of them are having regrets about reconnecting with family. So the movie ups that stake by giving us Statham’s sister as a sexy spy (Vanessa Kirby, who is gorgeous AND plays a bratty little-sis well) who has injected herself with a deadly virus to keep it away from bad guy Idris Elba. Elba is virtually unstoppable with robotic upgrades and a Crysis-style super-suit but it’s his history with Statham that REALLY sends him after our heroes. And then there is The Rock’s family, who all live in Samoa and help defeat Elba in the climax with spears and clubs instead of guns! Everyone’s personal issues are resolved with a little bow, the bad guy loses, and a pre-credits scene makes us wonder who will play the head of the EVIL CORPORATION in Hobbs & Shaw 2: 2 Hobbs 2 Shaw. The End. Wait two years. Do it again. Repeat ad nauseam. David Leitch (who directed Atomic Blonde) is no Justin Lin but he keeps his action camera static so I can actually SEE what’s happening. Statham and The Rock ARE swaggerful leads and make the best of the material. Kirby is nice to look at. And the action was serviceable. Most couldn’t ask for more.
Time to beat a dead horse. There is a point about half-an-hour from the actual end of the movie where it COULD have ended. I was satisfied. The bad guy’s base (located on an abandoned nuclear reactor site) had been ‘sploded real good. Hobbs & Shaw are fighting Elba on the back of a moving flatbed truck while the rubble is falling all around them. It was the perfect ending. But I knew there was more. LOTS more. And I was reminded of how once, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America – both arguable classics – were edited for time so there could be more screenings in a day, so there would be more MONEY. But these theatrical cuts were hack weekend jobs that ended up removing big chunks of characterization and plot that left both movies as incomprehensible messes with controversial content without any context for it remaining. Hollywood has always loved money UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. They are doing it the “modern” way now: making the movie as LONG as humanely-possible so the audience gets MORE BANG FOR ITS BUCK and it will STAY IN THEATERS LONGER and therefore GENERATE MORE MONEY from REPEAT VIEWERS. Look at what Disney just did with Endgame’s re-release ONE MONTH AFTER THE MOVIE WAS ALREADY IN THEATERS! There is NOTHING you can’t edit from Hobbs & Shaw that won’t make the movie’s pace better and help it end faster. Cut the cameos. There are NO CAMEOS from other Fast & Furious alumni: just Ryan Reynolds showing up out-of-nowhere as Hobbs’ ex-partner (doing his whole Ryan Reynolds schtick that I JUST LOVE.), and Kevin Hart as an Air Marshall. These cameos SUCK. They don’t add to the movie. They don’t add to the mythos of the franchise. They aren’t funny. SEE YA.
But if you still want to see it I won’t blame you, the trailer makes it look really cool.
//jf 8.14.19
theory of a daskeman 