{"id":9592,"date":"2019-07-31T10:02:20","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T17:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog-proxy.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/?p=9592"},"modified":"2019-08-05T11:14:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T18:14:29","slug":"fast-furious-presents-hobbs-shaw-review-three-reasons-to-see-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/hobbs-and-shaw-review\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Fast &#038; Furious Presents: Hobbs &#038; Shaw\u2019 Review: Three Reasons To See It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <em>Fast &amp; Furious<\/em> franchise hurdles farther and faster away from reality, its first spinoff &#8211; David Leitch\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atomtickets.com\/movies\/fast-furious-presents-hobbs-shaw\/270709\"><em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em><\/a> &#8211; punches buddy-cop formulas into bro-verdrive. The summer\u2019s most unexpected bromantic comedy jammed full of pyrotechnics, punishing hits, and more insults than a Jeff Ross roast special. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham will warm your heart with their will-they-won\u2019t-they bromance if they don\u2019t pummel your face in first. Ah, to be excited about blockbuster excitement that\u2019s only ever about having big-ticket fun. When are we, the &#8217;80s?<\/p>\n<p>In 2019&#8217;s joint operation, Deckard Shaw (Statham) and Luke Hobbs (Johnson) are tasked with containing a supervirus dubbed \u201cSnowflake\u201d before it infects the world. The technology-obsessed outfit Eteon wants to cleanse Earth of its weakest inhabitants, so they send their super-soldier Brixton (Idris Elba) on the same quest. To complicate matters, Shaw\u2019s sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) finds herself caught in the middle as she&#8217;s the only one who knows the virus\u2019 whereabouts. Can Hobbs and Shaw quit bickering and flexing on one another long enough to save humanity? That\u2019s a tougher ask than you\u2019d assume.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PzCg9G3bjRs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Universal is releasing <em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> this weekend starting August 1st. In the meantime, here are three reasons why this faster and furiouser beat-&#8217;em-up would get even Xander Cage\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n<h2>1) You\u2019re Here For The Smashing, Bashing, And Nonsense Action<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-9602\" src=\"http:\/\/blog-proxy.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hattie-hobbs-shaw-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hattie-hobbs-shaw-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hattie-hobbs-shaw-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hattie-hobbs-shaw-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hattie-hobbs-shaw-500x281.jpg 500w, https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hattie-hobbs-shaw.jpg 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Do I need to recount <a href=\"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/lessons-from-fast-and-furious-franchise\/\">how ludicrous Dominic Toretto\u2019s exploits became after <em>Fast Five<\/em><\/a>? Parachuting automobiles. Tank Fu. Hobbs throws a torpedo across iced-over waters at one point. These are action fantasies of grade-schoolers executed on extravagant budgets, so you better believe <em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> continues tradition. I mention Vin Diesel&#8217;s adrenaline-junkie Agent Cage above because Leitch\u2019s offshoot feels as spectacularly zany as <em>xXx: Return Of Xander Cage<\/em> in the best of ways. My dreams of a crossover will never prove doable (double Diesel?!), but these teams uniting would put the Expendables out of business. Stallone\u2019s crew wishes they had their own Vanessa Kirby (for my money the film\u2019s standout performer).<\/p>\n<p>Hobbs isn\u2019t a natural driver, more the brute force, but Shaw\u2019s obsession with McLaren roadsters brings road rage to a whole new level. As Brixton chases Shaw\u2019s sports car through traffic or under sixteen wheeler gaps, his modified motorcycle morphs like a transformer to avoid danger. Brixton\u2019s cybernetic enhancements favor hand-to-hand advantages and brawler bravado, but a vehicular \u201chuman centipede\u201d sequence &#8211; highlighted by Hobbs lassoing a helicopter with a tow truck\u2019s winch &#8211; stays true to <em>Fast &amp; Furious<\/em>&#8216;s signatures. Does Hobbs leap onto the backs of Eteon soldiers, sans harness, as Hattie\u2019s captors sprint vertically down a skyscraper\u2019s exterior? Of course! Yet aromas of gunsmoke and exhaust fumes aren&#8217;t altogether forgotten.<\/p>\n<h2>2) Johnson &amp; Statham Know You\u2019re Here For Pure Fun<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/images.atomtickets.com\/image\/upload\/h_960,q_auto\/v1561055133\/ingestion-images-archive-prod\/archive\/1561055133024_270709_cops_7.jpg\" width=\"1824\" height=\"960\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> is self-referential, metatextual, and leans heavily into the catalogs of both stars. Be it blatantly referencing iconic pasts &#8211; \u201cThe People\u2019s Eyebrow\u201d or <em>The Italian Job<\/em> &#8211; or intercutting fight sequences with machismo measuring gags. At no point do you believe the film\u2019s titular heroes can lose, which some might find a tad vexing. With lives on the line, neither Hobbs nor Shaw can stop from burning each other with Mom joke insults, emasculation attempts, and playground name-calling. At times, Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce\u2019s screenplay exists as an excuse to call out Johnson for being an overly oiled gigantic baby. At others? Apex predators sheath their weapons and verbally berate one another with flirtatious chemistry you almost think Hobbs or Shaw might finally act on.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s inarguably a\u00a0<em>Lethal Weapon<\/em>\u00a0redux by tone. An assassin of elegance who stealthily infiltrates fashion shows must team up with a mountain of muscles less subtle than the pizza guy in an adult movie. As Rob Delaney\u2019s Agent Loeb remarks, Hobbs and Shaw couldn\u2019t POSSIBLY let bitter resentment derail an apocalypse-preventing mission &#8211; right? Maybe Leitch allows his production to wink a little <em>too<\/em> hard the audiences\u2019 way, but it wouldn\u2019t be <em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> without both \u201cheroes\u201d nitpicking the other\u2019s execution throughout. Zingers galore whether they\u2019re at Brixton\u2019s expense, or skewering multiple cameo participants, or recreating cliched action dialogue of yesteryear.<\/p>\n<h2>3) Seriously. You Saw \u2018The Fate Of The Furious.&#8217; What Did You Expect?<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/images.atomtickets.com\/image\/upload\/h_960,q_auto\/v1561055152\/ingestion-images-archive-prod\/archive\/1561055151874_270709_cops_9.jpg\" width=\"1824\" height=\"960\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> is a borderline action farce in that material is always one small nudge away from parody, but that\u2019s its draw. Why does Hobbs demolish Eteon henchmen in a Samoan battle cloth but then put a shirt on when continuing the chase? How do romantic or dramatic elements feel more forced than a Michael Bay movie? Who wrote some of this dialogue, a bot fed nothing but cheesetastic, &#8217;90s action cinema? Then again, that\u2019s <em>exactly<\/em> why you\u2019re buying a ticket. To watch robot Idris Elba call himself \u201cBlack Superman\u201d while gnawing through villain one-liners like a veteran big bad.<\/p>\n<p>When it\u2019s all said and done, <em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> circles right back to the \u201cfamily forever\u201d vibes that define <em>Fast &amp; Furious<\/em> movies as much as Corona logos and chop-shop charisma. Familiar faces return, humans prove artificial intelligence is no match for coexistence, and \u201c\u2018Aiga\u201d &#8211; Samoan for \u201cfamily\u201d &#8211; proves invaluable (hope I\u2019ve used that word correctly). I could have done with less puerile humor and johnson-measuring (Star-Lord and Thor ain\u2019t got nothin\u2019 on these two) and cleaner Act III warfare (shaky-cam chaos), but franchise devotees will enjoy Leitch\u2019s NOS-injected mayhem. Maybe just as much as Stratham and Johnson enjoy poking fun at one another\u2019s careers through in-character jests? When a cast is clearly loving their jobs, that translates to screen. Don\u2019t let tempers fool you &#8211;<em> Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> may be the summer\u2019s most heartwarming film to be covered with lumps, bruises, and pound-for-pound brawn.<\/p>\n<p><em>Hobbs &amp; Shaw<\/em> is in theaters this weekend.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.atomtickets.com\/movies\/fast-furious-presents-hobbs-shaw\/270709?ref=insidertickets\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7948\" src=\"http:\/\/blog-proxy.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Get-Tickets.png\" alt=\"get tickets\" width=\"200\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Fast &amp; Furious franchise hurdles farther and faster away from reality, its first spinoff &#8211; David Leitch\u2019s Hobbs &amp; Shaw &#8211; punches buddy-cop formulas into bro-verdrive. The summer\u2019s most unexpected bromantic comedy jammed full of pyrotechnics, punishing hits, and more insults than a Jeff Ross roast special. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[40,37],"class_list":["post-9592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-featuredpage","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9592"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9603,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9592\/revisions\/9603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}