Review of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) by Nikolayg — 04 Aug 2019

The trailers for this movie suggest a balance between humor and action that is not present in the movie. I expected this film to be along the lines of the movie, "Knight and Day" with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz with respect to the mix of action and humor, but this movie is actually lots and lots of action just as in any straight forward action flick, with tiny bits of humor here and there. You could literally remove all humor and still have a full length movie. It is that incidental. The result is that much of the humor seems out of place because between humorous moments you forget it's not just a straight forward action flick. Also, the movie opens with a pretty extensive and brutal scene introducing the bad guy, which also seems out of place in a movie that attempts to ride this particular line between action and humor. I know the bad guy isn't supposed to be part of the humor, but there is still a limit to how brutal a movie like this should get in any scene or else it feels schizophrenic. Unless it's shooting for black humor like the Coen Brothers, which it most certainly isn't. In fact, it has a very strong, unmistakably Disney-esque message at the end, about the power of love etc. So bottom line, it was OK but I think they need some serious reshoots to rebalance.

Also, one more point from a strictly action perspective. I saw the opening to one of the Fast & Furious movies. It's the only other Fast & Furious bit I've ever watched. I don't remember which one it was but the scene was with the good guys racing down a road in the Dominican Republic and some kind of truck threatening them. It was a brilliant action bit. Nothing in Hobbs & Shaw comes close to that Fast & Furious scene, despite all the over-the-top stuff with a helicopter linked to trucks and so on.