This first Fast and Furious spin-off will make your head spin. It’s relentlessly jam packed with stunts and special effects throughout with car, truck and motorcycle, helicopter chases, hand-to-hand combat, and even an all out war with Samoan warriors. High tech weapons and gadgets abound in this elongated flick that runs well over 2 hours.
Constant mayhem is inevitable with Lou Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) who have a history of hate for each other (Fast and Furious 7) and with the villain in this movie, Brixton (Idris Elba). Add Shaw’s strong sister, Hattie, an M16 agent with attitude (Vanessa Kirby, Mission Impossible: Fallout) who is really the star of this show. Nothing shakes her. Would love to see Vanessa Kirby do her own spin off. Her character was one of the most interesting of the bunch because, in this movie, she shows she’s really fast and furious.
They all should have died a hundred times just like in all the cartoonish live action films from the rest of the series. They take so many blows and are knocked out and around so many times, you think the film could have ended any number of times with their demise. But they keep coming back for more. It’s so over the top that it becomes a parody of itself.
This is the last big budget blockbuster of the summer. It cost $200 million to make. Is the money well spent? Director David Leitch (Deadpool, John Wick movies, and Atomic Blonde) knows his way around action sequences and they never stop.
There are a few very cool moves. Statham gets to be the driver. Johnson is perfectly capable to take off his shirt and do the heavy lifting. And Idris Elba plays a man/machine who is virtually indestructible. We got a kick out of seeing him summon his motorcycle (also a tough cookie) and leg sweep it back on its wheels. The scene where Hobbs and Shaw’s car and Brixton’s motorcycle barely make it under two semis during the chase is split second video magic. Hold your breath. The movie is a series of outrageously ludicrous stunts that each character get to execute.
The plot had two main points. There’s a lethal virus that’s about to be unleashed on the world that is going to decimate humanity and, of course, the clock is ticking. The other is that the world has to be saved by the Bickersons, Hobbs and Shaw. They’re very silly. And Shaw’s sister’s life is at stake. She and her brother are also bickering. Chris Morgan who has written many a Fast and Furious movie, is responsible for the laborious back and forth between these characters. It’s a little tiresome, even when they decide to work together to save the world.
Leitch adds a few fine respites of comedy, with Helen Mirren as the wise-cracking mother of Shaw and his sister, Ryan Reynolds with the same dry humor and voice of Deadpool, but without the costume, and Kevin Hart who suddenly pops up on a plane.
Idris Elba is calm but enjoys chewing them up with a sneer through the grill on his teeth with his gold eyes glowing as he pulls the chain of Hobbs and Shaw. He knows how to inflict pain and dodge getting hit himself because he’s more computer than man. Shaw killed him once, but can he kill him again?
Not only do Hobbs and Shaws jump around at each other, but they jump around the globe trying to stop the virus from destroying the world. Johnson gets to take the battle to his home turf, Samoa. He even has family on the set and his mother cried when she heard him speak lines in Samoan. It a colorful sequence and that battle is very different than the rest of the film.
The story builds to the most ridiculous action sequences in the film involving a helicopter and supercharged tow trucks on winding cliffs overlooking the ocean. It’s bizarre and goes on forever. You have to appreciate the creativity involved in staging these incredibly complex stunt scenes, but they lose their impact due to the sheer incredulity of the situations.
Stay through the credits, for another dose of dry humor and a hint at another installment. Fast and Furious films always honor family, so If you’re looking for a big no-brainer action movie with a little bit of heart, this is one long, loud buddy trip.
Universal Pictures 2 hours 15 minutes PG-13
