A No Vin-Vin Situation

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Built To Fast
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 137 min

8 Fast 8 Furious was a disaster.  Sure, it was fast, and yeah, it was furious, but it ended up being 1 fast and 1 furious way too many for my tastes.  Bringing Dwayne Johnson into the fold changed the dynamic of the franchise for the worse (but perhaps for box office best).  Fast & Furious is no longer about hot cars, hot chicks, and the meatheads who drive and ride both.  It’s now about solving global terrorism… with cars?  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY FAST & FURIOUSSESS!!!!

So what to do?  Apparently the right thing – Dwayne Johnson doesn’t need the world of Fast & Furious, and we don’t need him there either.  So use the F&F letterhead and team him up with his rival and let the hi & lowjinks ensue.

Welcome to Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw!

It’s got the F&F attitude, but none of the Vin Diesel battitude!  And it turns bad guy Jason Statham into a good guy!  And he gets to make fun of The Rock the entire time!  And he has a sister – Vanessa Kirby – who roxxxx!!

And the movie is very self-reflexive!  It knows how dumb it is and plays that up!  Cliché upon cliché is clichéd, and it works!

But this movie is 137 minutes too long.  Yes, the whole thing is unnecessary.  After some big fight between our three heroes and the bad guy (Idris Elba), I was like – that’s a good place to end.  I’ve seen enuff.  I’ve enjoyed this dumb aplenty.  We don’t need to continue on, and have more scenes of talking and strategizing and plotting, just to set up another big fight.  But it went on, and it turned into Whale Rider or something, and then we’re introduced to a character related to one of our characters, and then I got really upset

Spoiler alert…

I got upset cause we’re introduced to The Rock’s screen mom, who lives in Samoa, a place the Rock’s character hasn’t been back to in 9ever cause of some pointless beef he has with his brother.  And in a movie where nothing is believable, I actually had a problem in believing this was in-character for the Rock’s character.  The Rock’s character is a big family man.  They always make it a huge point about how he loves his daughter and stresses the importance of family.  So if that is the case, why would he never see his mama?  And hold back his daughter from meeting and getting to know her grammy?  This makes no sense.  It makes no sense especially since the beef the Rock’s character had with his brother is squashed in all of about 8 seconds.  All that estrangement for nothing.  The Rock’s character made his mother sad for ages, and withheld gladness from his daughter as well.  That’s too slow, too curious

Next time, less family, more feud.  And pile on even more clichés!

Verdictgo: dumb, but fun, so I guess… Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Hobbs throbs at a theater near jews and white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…