Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

The Low-Down: Sometimes, you build a cinematic universe by design (hopefully). Other times, you build it almost by accident. When The Fast And The Furious was released way back in 2001, no one could have foreseen it spawning a box-office-busting franchise that has since raked in more than $5 billion over eight films. Deciding to create this spin-off focusing on two of the franchise’s newest and most charismatic additions – the titular Hobbs and Shaw – must have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, this film feels like a literal no-brainer too, its weak, cluttered script mostly failing to support its inexplicably talented cast.

The Story: If you’ve never watched a single Fast & Furious film (like this reviewer), you won’t be too lost. It’s fairly easy to pick up the threads of the spiky rivalry between American federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and British assassin-with-a-past Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Their mutual loathing takes a back-seat when both men end up on the same mission: chasing down a potentially world-destroying super-virus embedded in Deckard’s sister, MI6 agent Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby). Hot on their heels is the cybernetically enhanced Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), who’s hellbent on securing the super-virus for his sinister employers.

The Good: When deployed effectively, Johnson and Statham are marvels of charisma and comic timing – well able to steal scenes, if not entire films, with snappy, snarky ease. On occasion, their electric charm and chemistry flare to life during Hobbs & Shaw, but it doesn’t happen often enough to save the film from its weak script and haphazard editing. That said, there’s some joy to be had in watching Hobbs & Shaw’s outrageously good supporting cast, which includes top-notch character actors like Helen Mirren and Eddie Marsan. Elba, for his part, acquits himself fairly well as a rampaging cyborg with a broken soul hidden somewhere beneath his menace and machinery.

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, the film never really lives up to the potential of its cast. The screenplay by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce is frustratingly flabby. It’s the kind of script in which a strong female character is only as strong as the film needs her to be – Kirby tries her best, but is given next to nothing to flesh out the role of Hattie. Hobbs & Shaw also fails to help its titular double act move from the sidelines into the spotlight. Their incredibly juvenile playground bickering and bantering becomes wearisome after a while, making it harder to buy into the film’s attempts to delve into their histories and families. In grand Fast & Furious tradition, the action sequences are big and bonkers, bouncing from London to Moscow and even Samoa – but, shorn of effective character development, they also feel empty and soulless, strung together to pad out a running time that’s already far too long.

Lock It Down: If you’re familiar with Leitch’s recent filmography, you won’t be surprised by an extended cameo in Hobbs & Shaw that proves to be one of the film’s highlights. It’s the kind of blithely cheeky stuff that Leitch has proven he can pull off well – he juggled heart and humour to great effect in Deadpool 2. But Hobbs & Shaw never quite knows what it wants to be – silly or earnest, dumb or dark – and winds up being neither and nothing.

Recommended? Only if you’re a Fast & Furious devotee, or a diehard fan of Johnson and/or Statham. Otherwise, Hobbs & Shaw is a muddled mess that will sorely test your patience and tolerance for poorly-written, testosterone-fuelled shenanigans.

Hercules (2014)

Brett Ratner makes big, dumb movies. Now, strictly speaking, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not every movie has to win Oscars galore; some movies can exist solely to entertain. However, even with that caveat in mind, Ratner’s track record isn’t great. For every fun, silly entry in the ridiculous Rush Hour franchise, there’s his bigger, dumber, altogether more reviled version of an X-Men movie to scrub off the CV. Hercules – a cheeky-yet-sombre reinvention of the Greek hero and myth – lodges itself somewhere between the two extremes. It’s big and dumb, sure, and often in a hugely amusing way – but, at other times, it’s actually impossible to ignore the film’s frankly terrible plotting.

The first inkling that this is not the Hercules you know comes in the form of Dwayne Johnson. Buffed to the max and sporting a skinned lion’s head for a helmet, this “hero” is actually a mercenary for hire – wading into battle for the sake of monetary reward. It turns out that there’s nothing all that demigod-like about the guy we all thought was the son of Zeus: his feats of great strength and endurance, known popularly as the Twelve Labours of Hercules, are merely stories, tall tales embellished to make him seem larger and more heroic than life itself. Instead, this version of Hercules roams Greece with his merry band of myth-makers: knife-thrower Autolycus (Rufus Sewell), Amazonian archer Atalanta (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), storyteller nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie), berserker Tydeus (Aksel Hennie) and wry soothsayer Amphiaraus (Ian McShane).

That’s actually a pretty interesting premise – one that allows Ratner to have quite a bit of fun while he lays out the rather more serious bits of his plot. Indeed, Hercules is saved from its generally leaden story by the rich, sarcastic vein of humour that runs through it. We may have to be regaled by the twists and turns of Hercules’ recruitment by Lord Cotys (John Hurt) to fend off the apparently supernatural enemy advances of rabble-rousing warlord Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann). But much of the joy of the film comes in its unapologetic bursts of comedy. Iolaus – effectively the troubadour of the piece – sings Hercules’ praises in a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek manner, hawking leather armour while his uncle rolls his eyes.  Tydeus barrels headlong into Hercules’ precious shield-wall. Amphiaraus constantly awaits the fiery death he has foretold for himself. It’s all quite happily ridiculous.

The film is considerably less successful when its plot rears its ugly head and it moves into heavy-handed, dramatic territory. There’s something intriguing about the politics in Thrace, particularly between Lord Cotys and his feisty daughter Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), but it’s dwarfed by a host of competent but not hugely inspiring action sequences. This is also the kind of movie in which the villains don’t kill the hero of the piece when they have the chance, just so the movie can keep on going. And keep on going it does, into a bizarre misfire of a final act that undoes a lot of its earlier, rather canny deconstruction of Hercules’ myth.

Johnson, always a winning presence, is effective but strangely under-used here. The kind of twinkle-eyed comedy the Rock has proven so good at is bypassed, sadly, in favour of plunging Hercules into a bitter battle with his inner demons. Hurt, too, is hamstrung by a role that’s too solidly black-and-white – whatever the shade of Lord Cotys’ morality. But the supporting players are clearly having a ball. McShane, in particular, practically waltzes through and away with the film, hitting his action beats as squarely and sublimely as he plays his distinctly hammy comedy.

In summary: anyone hankering after a straight-laced re-telling of the Hercules myth will be disappointed. This is most emphatically not the film for them. To be fair, it’s not quite the film for those who are looking for something a little edgier either. At some points, Ratner’s film hits the mark: it cleverly peels away the layers of legend to reveal the person beneath – an uncommon man, but no anointed demigod. At others, its plot debunks itself into incoherence, and the melodrama of it all threatens to overwhelm the far better-judged moments of humour. The final result is a big, dumb movie that’s undeniably entertaining, but falls short when it tries to be something more.

Basically: A trademark big, dumb Brett Ratner movie that veers haphazardly between the sublime and the excruciating.

Pain And Gain (2013)

When Michael Bay announced that he would be making an action comedy featuring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson as bodybuilders-turned-criminals, most assumed it would be constructed along the lines of his standard blow-’em-up blockbusters: loud, brainless, funny in an obvious way. The surprise that comes with a huge serving of Pain & Gain is its unexpected narrative ambition and depth. Buried some way beneath the director’s characteris-tics is a pitch-black vein of farce that separates the movie from the rest of Bay’s filmography. Even if the final result is less accomplished and light of touch than it needs to be to really succeed, it nevertheless proves that Bay can be something more than Hollywood’s primary purveyor of popcorn spectacle.

Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) is a man who believes in the American dream: he can be anything he wants to be, as long as he works hard enough for it. But reality has a nasty way of putting dreamers in their place, and Lugo soon decides on a risky plan of action to force his way out of his job as a personal trainer. Enlisting the help of born-again Christian Paul Doyle (Johnson) and cash-strapped Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), Lugo puts into motion a plan to kidnap self-made millionaire and a**hole Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub). Inevitably, things go awry as the trio encounter obstacles (including themselves) in their attempts to swindle Kershaw and cover up their tracks.

Bay’s film starts off somewhat oddly. At first, it’s hard to tell just what the director is going for – a balls-out action comedy? A crime caper? An ironic statement on the hollowness of chasing the illusory American Dream? While the film flits uncomfortably back and forth between genres and ideas, Bay’s cast – particularly Wahlberg and Johnson – seem to be in on some larger joke from the get-go, playing their roles with outrageous, almost flamboyant flair.

But, as Bay tosses in ever darker and more unbelievable elements into the narrative mix, tone and performance start to come into alignment. Lugo’s mania and Doyle’s faith shift into clearer, more hilarious focus even as we’re introduced to snarky wife-to-be Robin (Rebel Wilson), retired detective Ed DuBois (Ed Harris), Kershaw’s remarkable survival instinct and moments of almost blissful stupidity. As it turns out, this is Bay attempting to make a Coen brothers film, revelling in the same themes (the futility of human endeavour) and tropes (crimes and their related cover-ups don’t pay), even if he doesn’t quite share the sublime lightness of touch they lend to their most farcical movies.

Bay benefits from gathering a cast who know what they’re doing even when he doesn’t. Both Wahlberg and Johnson deliver satire-rich performances, the former dialling up the manic intensity, the latter delighting in the more evangelical aspects of his character. Supporting turns from the likes of Mackie and Shalhoub keep the movie humming; Shalhoub, in particular, plays the unlikeable bastard Kershaw with such relish and charisma that he steals practically every scene he’s in.

In effect, Pain & Gain is Bay’s vacation movie: a break from the Transformers production line. On more than one occasion, it falters when it should fly, and its claim to being based on a true story is facetious in the extreme. But it’s worth a watch for its ambition and dark, dark heart – not to mention the glimpse it provides into a universe in which Bay can actually make movies that don’t just revolve around robots beating one another up. 

Basically: A crime-laced farce that gets better as it goes on, though one can’t help but wonder what magic the Coen brothers might have wrought with the same material.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Perhaps it was unfair of me to expect greatness (or even goodness) from G.I. Joe: Retaliation. After all, I’ve never played with a toy from the G.I. Joe line, nor have I watched the cult television series that sprung up around the characters in the 1980s. I hadn’t even watched the 2009 big-budget cinematic reboot of the series.

Nevertheless, I was hoping for at least a modicum of chirpy charm from the likes of its new cast members, Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis, both of whom no doubt radiate charisma in their sleep. I mean, what action franchise actually upgrades its cast for a sequel? Usually, the big stars depart and increasingly B (to Z)-list stars continue the (invariably not-so-good) fight. In Retaliation, Johnson – in particular – plays tag team with Channing Tatum, taking over as the leader of what’s left of the Joes when they’re targeted by a hostile Cobra force that has infiltrated the White House and laid claim to its primary inhabitant, the President (Jonathan Pryce).   

Tragically, the cast upgrade wasn’t accompanied with a plot booster. To someone unschooled in G.I. Joe lore, the movie stumbles around as a vaguely effective action movie, its characters lurching from bad to good and back again with next to no backstory on offer. Perhaps most of this was contained in the first film, but having not watched that, I was set adrift at sea for much of this one’s running time… which is a problem in a film where stuff mostly blows up and people engage one another in elaborately choreographed fight sequences.

To his credit, Johnson tries, and tries very hard indeed, but is saddled with a deeply earnest movie that should have tried harder to be somewhat sillier. Its basic plot is ludicrous and a little bit of tongue-in-cheek humour – the sort encapsulated in Pryce’s fabulously over-the-top performance in his dual roles – would have been welcome. Instead, the film stops being charming once Tatum wraps up his cameo, and settles into strangely dark, sombre territory for a film that should be at least halfway barmy. As for Willis, he’s intermittently amusing in what little screen-time he has – but that’s not really enough to lift the entire film out of the doldrums.

Perhaps that’s a rather uncharitable view from someone who isn’t particularly invested in the franchise. I know of at least two people who are fans of G.I. Joe in its other incarnations who quite enjoyed this film for what it was, and certainly there are a few cool moments involving the very ripped, gorgeous Byung-hun Lee as the morally ambiguous Storm Shadow. The confrontation that plays out in balletic fashion across a craggy cliff-face is also quite fun to watch in 3D. But, looking at the entire film as a whole, it’s hard to understand just why Johnson and Willis agreed to take such a clumsy second step with this franchise in the first place.

Basically: Be warned: this isn’t a great sequel to watch if you’re completely unfamiliar with everything that’s preceded it. For fans though, I’ve been told there’s much to enjoy.

Snitch (2013)

Welcome to the latest chapter in Dwayne Johnson’s ongoing saga to be taken as a serious actor. The good news? Snitch contains some of his most thoughtful dramatic work to date, packaged in a mostly smart, fairly tense thriller about the lengths a father will go to save his son from prison. The somewhat less good news? There isn’t all that much in Snitch that raises it out of standard thriller territory.

John Matthews (Johnson) seems to have everything – a happy family with a beautiful wife and lovely young daughter, and a booming logistics company. But his world is turned upside down the day Jason (Rafi Gavron), his son from his first marriage, is entangled in a drug deal gone wrong. The only way John can free Jason from prison involves cutting a deal with district attorney Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon) – one that will see him break the law to trade a drug kingpin for the freedom of his son.

It’s not been easy for Johnson to shed the baggage of his career as a professional wrestler – to this day, people expect his movies to be big, dumb action blockbusters crafted to suit his presumably limited range as an actor. That would be doing the hugely charismatic Johnson a disservice, however – and after proving his mettle and range in a series of comedies, he’s now selected a role that’s less about his brawn and more about his character’s brains (and sheer unbridled nerve). John could’ve easily been played by any actor who boasts a far less impressive physique than The Rock’s. It’s a gamble that pays off. Johnson demonstrates here that he can smoulder, emote and more than hold his own against veteran characters actors like Sarandon and the impressive Jon Bernthal (as a paranoid ex-con who’s trying to mend his ways but winds up entangled in John’s predicament).

The story doesn’t really aim for complexity, nor does it come anywhere near breaking new ground. But it is rather affecting as a treatise on the strength of a father’s love for his son – one that sees him make difficult choices that take him away from the new family he’s built up since his divorce – and could prove surprisingly emotional for those who don’t expect sentiment to feature heavily in a movie starring The Rock.

Otherwise, the pulse of the film beats at too steady a pace for its story to really get its hooks into viewers. The beats are familiar, the various elements (face-offs, double bluffs, confessionals) blended together competently but not especially masterfully. It’s not quite fair to say that Snitch lets Johnson and his appealingly nuanced performance down – it doesn’t, not quite. But it certainly doesn’t him do very many favours.

Basically: Dwayne Johnson gives his richest performance to date in a film that’s not at all bad… but isn’t really good either.

Get Smart (2008)

Knockabout spy comedy Get Smart – a fairly longrunning TV series from the 1960s – has built up a loyal fanbase over the years, one which remembers the madcap antics of bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart with a nostalgia that might prove handy or a hindrance at the box office. Yes, Hollywood has once again plundered the archive of classic television sitcoms and updated the show for a modern audience… and as critical reviews would have it, has produced a mediocre film not worthy of its source material. I beg to differ: the film is without a doubt very far from being a classic, and its resolute silliness does get wearying after a while. But, with an excellent cast including Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway and yes, even Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the film’s weaker moments are quickly papered over by amiable, thoroughly entertaining comedy.

The new-generation Maxwell Smart (Carell) is a research analyst for the CIA who has tried (repeatedly) and lost weight (a lot of it) to take the field agent test that will allow him to actively spy rather than sit behind a desk and write huge, dry, boring tomes of analysis that no one actually reads. Unfortunately, he’s perpetually outshone by dazzlingly fit guys like Agent 23 (Johnson) – until top-secret CIA offshot CONTROL and its top-flight agents are busted by a rogue organisation KAOS. Not so much qualified as a field agent, but rather thrust into action by default, Maxwell must save the day – even if he is inordinately clumsy. Can he convince his new, deeply skeptical and extremely efficient partner Agent 99 (Hathaway) that there’s more to him than a useless klutz who always gets in her way?

Now, the comedy in GS is broad and mostly predictable – it’s not wacky and off-kilter in the way Will Ferrell comedies sometimes are, nor is it edgy and weird like the film incarnation of Starsky & Hutch was (and that movie certainly took a particular kind of rather odd sensibility to appreciate). So you get broad jokes and slapstick rather than subtle gags, like Maxwell failing in an epic way to navigate pretty much anything – be it a beaded curtain-door, ejecting himself from an airplane, or sometimes even walking. He clubs his boss (Alan Arkin) in the head, gets a fish hook repeatedly embedded in his face, and trips and pratfalls like a pro.

What saves GS from itself is really its remarkably talented, game cast. Carell elevates the seeming ordinariness of this comedy by his very presence – it’s not an exaggeration to say that he has some of the finest comic timing of anyone in the business right now, and he lends his wry everyman demeanour to his character, infusing Max with a kind of quirky charm that’s simply impossible to resist. Whether he’s shouting with joy in a malfunctioning Cone of Silence, or bonding with science geeks (played by Masi Oka and Nate Torrence), Carell is just… funny. It’s a joy to watch him onscreen – as it is to witness Hathaway’s first proper turn as a comic actress. She’s displayed the ability to get laughs in her tween outings like The Princess Diaries or chick-flick fare such as The Devil Wears Prada. Sure, she’s the straight (wo)man in this equation and so relies more on looking icily disapproving to draw chuckles than falling on her face. But she makes it work, and even manages to inject a little bit of pathos into her portrayal of Agent 99. She has a surprisingly lovely dramatic moment when she talks about the connection she has lost to her past and her mother because of the extensive plastic surgery she has undergone that allows her to work with Max.

Is GS predictable? Yes. Does it occasionally frustrate? Certainly. Is the ending contrived? Duh. But, for all that, the film (unlike, say, The Love Guru) does exactly what a summer comedy is supposed to do: for a couple of hours, it takes you out of your life, lets you laugh – a little or quite a bit, as in this case – and doesn’t tax the brain cells overly much. It’s not a film that will linger in your consciousness for long after you leave the cinema, but it wasn’t engineered for that purpose. Leave your brain at the door, and I suspect that you’ll enjoy it for what it is. Judge, and you won’t – simple as that.