Review | Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw film review – Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham go into Bond territory in spin-off
- With expensive cars, over-the-top action, a ludicrous plot and plenty of on-screen chemistry, this Fast & Furious spin-off does not disappoint
- It’s the closest that the Fast & Furious films have gone into James Bond territory, with gadgets and a Spectre-style criminal networks
3.5/5 stars
The last time the Fast & Furious franchise tried a spin-off, it was 2006’s Tokyo Drift – the least successful of the series. But that was before the series became a multibillion-dollar-grossing blockbuster behemoth, propelling lead actors Vin Diesel and the late Paul Walker to superstardom.
Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, by comparison, is a much stronger affair, partly because it spotlights two of the more interesting supporting characters – criminal Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) and agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) – to have emerged since the series drifted in Tokyo.
Following on loosely from Fast & Furious 8 , Hobbs and Shaw are recruited, separately, to track down a super-virus dubbed “Snowflake”. The intel is that Shaw’s sister Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby), an MI6 agent, has gone rogue, stealing the virus and killing her team.
But the truth is rather different. Self-proclaimed “bad guy” Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) is behind the murders; an operative for a criminal organisation, he’s been augmented with the latest cyber-tech to turn him into something akin to The Terminator.
It’s the closest that the Fast & Furious films have gone into James Bond territory – with gadgets galore and a Spectre-style criminal network – though stuntman-turned-director David Leitch ( John Wick , Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde ) rather outdoes 007 when it comes to the action.