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.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

The Low-Down: There really is no better time for Hollywood to release its first live-action Pokémon movie. Generations of children – who are now adults with spending power – have grown up dreaming of becoming Pokémon trainers. Since their creation in the mid-1990s, the (mostly) adorable creatures known as Pokémon (‘pocket monsters’) have captured hearts and imaginations all over the world – through video-games, animated television shows, movies and more. The advent of Pokémon Go in 2016 has taken the franchise into the global mainstream, boosting its name recognition even among those who couldn’t have differentiated between a Bulbasaur and a Charmander just a few years ago. Fortunately, Detective Pikachu doesn’t come across as just a cynical cash-grab – it will delight its devoted fan base, but is also smart and charming enough to appeal to a wider audience.

The Story: Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) has lived a life as far away from his childhood dream of becoming a Pokémon trainer as you can get. Working quietly in the insurance industry, he refuses to even choose a Pokémon as his companion. One day, he receives a fateful call that brings him to Ryme City: a metropolis created by brilliant industrialist Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy), where humans and Pokémon live and work in harmony. Tim’s estranged father has gone missing, and the only clue he has left behind is Detective Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) – whose clever insights and snarky observations can only be understood by Tim.

The Good: Detective Pikachu is a remarkably canny adaptation of Pokémon lore and legend. Fans will have a ton of fun (and might need multiple viewings) to spot all the Pokémon wandering in and out of frame – from dozing Slakoths to swooping Pidgeots, grieving Cubones and beyond. You might find yourself experiencing a sense of visceral joy at seeing these critters come to life, quite literally, and interact with actual human beings – not just on the page, or via pixels. Happily, though, the film doesn’t simply rely on fan service and affection to power through. There’s a welcome wit and warmth to much of its writing that’s impossible to resist, especially when it comes to the film’s titular electric-yellow hero – an adorable ball of energy that literally (and metaphorically) lights up the screen.

The Not-So-Good: If you’re a Pokémon neophyte, you might find yourself quite confused by audience reactions to Detective Pikachu, which don’t always match what’s happening on screen. You’ll still be able to follow the narrative fairly easily, but you’ll be lost when audience members freak out at the many Easter eggs and callbacks to decades of Pokémon canon. The film’s plotting also loses its footing towards the end, when the motivations of its main antagonist and the truth about Tim’s mysterious connection with Detective Pikachu become clear. At this point, it feels as if director Rob Letterman and his screenwriting team came up with the ending they wanted, and then reverse-engineered the rest of the film to make it work.

MVP (Most Valuable Pokémon): The answer is obviously Pikachu – a blend of brilliant character design and charismatic voice/facial-capture work by Reynolds. But one of the greatest joys of Detective Pikachu is that it doesn’t simply provide a showcase for Pikachu, already one of the most beloved of all Pokémon. Psyduck – a frazzled duck perpetually on the verge of combusting from stress – walks a fine line between hilarious and helpful. Even Mr. Mime, easily one of the weirdest and creepiest Pokémon ever created, gets a moment to shine – and in the kind of scene that’s so blissfully weird and silly that you can’t help but appreciate what the filmmakers are trying to do, even if they don’t always succeed.

Recommended? Yes. Detective Pikachu could have raked in the cash through brand loyalty alone. But the film is evidently the product of a great deal of love and care. Flawed as it is, this thoughtful re-imagining of the Pokémon franchise is fun, silly and charming in lots of the right ways.

Deadpool 2 (2018)

Remember when the very concept of making a Deadpool movie was a risk that no sane person or studio would dare to undertake? That was just over two years ago. Defying naysayers and sceptics, Deadpool became a cultural phenomenon: a seriously silly, smart, self-aware comedy that merrily skewered the entire superhero movie genre (sometimes literally), while repeatedly shattering box-office records and the fourth wall. If you enjoyed Deadpool’s irresistible blend of satire, violence and irreverence, Deadpool 2 will be right up your alley. It’s more (literally much more) of the same – in a (mostly) good way: this is blithely rude, clever filmmaking, funny and fresh enough that you’ll be willing to forgive the movie its shortcomings.

Ryan Reynolds returns as Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool – a super-dude (not quite a hero, almost certainly not a villain) blessed and cursed with the inability to die. When we meet Wade again, he is trying – and mostly failing – to come to terms with how his work as a mercenary endangers those whom he loves, particularly his girlfriend, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). The tragedy of Deadpool – both the character and this film –  is that his superpower can mend his body and his bones but, unfortunately, cannot put a broken heart back together again.

Not quite able to put himself out his misery, Wade keeps staggering through the land of the living. During a mission with some third-string X-Men, he encounters Russell (Julian Dennison), a troubled young man with a fiery temper. It’s a fateful meeting, for it sets Wade right in the path of Cable (Josh Brolin), a grim, grizzled bounty hunter who’s determined to take a life to change a future he cannot accept.

It may sound like a dismal experience, but it’s very much not. Deadpool 2 is easily one of the funniest, weirdest films you’ll see this year. Emboldened by the runaway success of its predecessor, this sequel dials up the wild, wacky humour to an almost overwhelming degree. Every frame of this film is crammed with jokes: from puns and pop-culture gags to sassy quips and meta references. This is story-telling by way of pastiche and spoof, which allows the film to flit from Celine Dion to ’80s cult classic Say Anything and back again. At one point, Deadpool even refers to Cable (grumpiness in half-man, half-machine form) as Thanos – a perfectly pointed nod to Brolin pulling double-duty as the huge-chinned purple antagonist in Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War.

The undeniable highlight of Deadpool 2 is Wade’s ill-advised attempt to stop Cable by creating X-Force, his own band of morally ambiguous super-powered individuals. Everything about this endeavour is hilarious: from selecting candidates like Terry Crews’ Bedlam and Rob Delaney’s schlubby Peter, to leaping into the great unknown with them on their very first mission. It allows for a brilliant sequence demonstrating how Domino (Zazie Beetz) gets by on her powers of extraordinary good luck, as well as a genius split-second cameo that works precisely because it’s so damn brief.

Not every joke lands, however – which is unsurprising considering how many are flung in the direction of audiences. There are several moments that are clearly meant to be hysterical but fall flat, which suggests that the script (credited to Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Reynolds) could have benefited from some judicious editing. An extended scene centred on Deadpool’s fairly gross regenerative abilities – let’s just say it involves a fresh pair of legs – goes on too long and belabours a joke that just barely works the first time around.  

With a couple of exceptions, the film doesn’t manage to do justice to the supporting characters in Wade’s orbit. Beetz’s Domino may swagger through scenes as a human blast of cool, breezy fun, but lacks anything resembling a backstory or personality. Russell also feels more like a walking plot point than an actual human person – that’s a huge shame, considering the depth of Dennison’s talent (cf. Taika Waititi’s Hunt For The Wilderpeople). Even Brolin’s Cable doesn’t get much in the way of characterisation until the final act.

It’s a really good thing, then, that the movie manages to stick its surprisingly emotional landing. At every step of the way, this raucous, knockabout comedy chooses the giddy over the grave, the satire over the drama, the caricature over the character. And yet, there’s a genuine emotional darkness at the heart of Deadpool 2. The film doesn’t shy away from examining the demons that haunt Wade and Cable, which lends real weight to their choices when sh*t finally gets real and sacrifices have to be made. (In a manner that will delight fans of this pairing in the comics, by the way!)

There’s a palpable joy, as well, to Reynolds’ performance that is delightful to watch. His own love of the character shines through – and no doubt helped during the film’s troubled pre-production process, when creative differences prompted original Deadpool director Tim Miller to leave. (He was replaced by David Leitch, aptly referred to in the credits as ‘One of The Guys Who Killed The Dog in John Wick’.) Reynolds is wonderfully adept at the Looney Tunes-style comedy that peppers Deadpool 2, somehow managing to emote even through a mask that completely covers his face. But he also sells Wade’s heartbreaking connection to Vanessa, one that he spends the entire film desperate to recover.  

At this point in the evolution of superhero movies, we’ve truly seen it all: from the gritty existentialism of The Dark Knight Rises to the soaring hope of Wonder Woman. Marvel Studios alone has produced a host of films in different genres: spy thrillers, political dramas, crime capers and more. But, in a day and age when special effects can accomplish the impossible, the Deadpool films still stand apart as something entirely different. There’s a giddy, unrestrained joy to them that recalls the wild, unchecked imagination of comic books – where anything can happen and nothing is off-limits. That Deadpool 2 manages to fold so much heart into its humour is icing on the cake.

Basically: So wildly funny and irreverent that you’ll forgive the film its flaws.

R.I.P.D. (2013)

What exactly, one wonders, were people expecting from R.I.P.D.? This supernatural comedy about dead cops policing the underworld is very, very far from great art – but it’s also not the utter trash that critics have almost unanimously made it out to be. Actually, this adaptation of the Dark Comics graphic novel is sly, kooky and witty, featuring a great supporting turn by Jeff Bridges: all reasons to give it a chance rather than avoid it like the plague.

Nick (Ryan Reynolds) is a cop who makes one mistake: together with his partner Bobby (Kevin Bacon), he takes a cut of a stash of gold they find during a drug bust. He pays for that mistake with his life – at least in this world. He soon finds himself in another one made up of wandering souls and monsters, policed by the Rest In Peace Department. Desperate to get back to his wife Julia (Stephanie Szostak), he agrees to work with maverick lawman Roy (Bridges) – a sheriff quite literally out of the Wild West. As Nick tries to bridge the divide between life and death, he stumbles upon a conspiracy that threatens to upset the supernatural balance of the universe.

Anyone who’s read the generally excoriating reviews of R.I.P.D. would approach the film with caution, if they hadn’t already dismissed it completely out of hand. That’s unfortunate, because the film is better, looser and funnier than you might imagine. Of course, there are awkward moments, mostly involving Nick’s ardent pining after Julia, and the plot is a ramshackle affair which only barely makes sense. But director Robert Schwentke keeps the tone light, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, as Nick stumbles uncertainly through the surprisingly snarky afterlife. The action beats are well-executed if not hugely exhilarating.

To the credit of everyone in the cast, they turn in funny, warm, enjoyable performances – even if they had a sense that the film would suffer the critical reception it has, they show no signs of it. Reynolds plays the beleaguered straight man with surprising grace, and is perfectly charming. He’s not really the main reason to watch R.I.P.D., however – that honour belongs to a triptych of great supporting actors. Bridges leads the pack with a truly joyous performance as the quippy, sarcastic, oddly sensitive Roy; he provides the film with much of its pleasingly dry wit. Bacon parlays his charming menace (or is that menacing charm?) gleefully into his role, and Mary Louise Parker is a delight as the incredibly sassy Mildred Proctor, the R.I.P.D.’s commanding officer and object of Roy’s affection.

Maybe it was a case of greatly lowered expectations playing a part in my enjoyment of R.I.P.D. – or perhaps what oddball humour the film has just quite squarely matched my own. Whatever the case, this film is genuinely not half as torturous as critical reception would have it. It’s very far from excellent, but boasts such silly, off-kilter humour that it will actually surprise you if you let it.

Basically: Fun, cheeky and really not half-bad. Who knows – it could gain a cult following of its own.

Turbo (2013)

Animated movies go where other movies cannot. It’s the final resort for the unfettered imagination – a way of realising stories, characters and universes when live action, for reasons of budget or logic, simply can’t cut it. Turbo is very much a movie that couldn’t exist outside of the medium. More than most films – even animated ones – it asks the audience to take a trip into the surreal: a quirky universe in which a snail can not only dream of speed, but actually have his wish come true. It’s a bold, quirky effort, but ultimately one that strains even the seemingly boundless limits of credibility afforded to animated films.

Theo (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) is a garden snail who’s obsessed with speed. He spends his nights watching his hero Guy Gagné (Bill Hader) race his way to victory on the Indy 500 circuit. Biology and his sensible older brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) are determined to keep Theo grounded – until a freak accident blesses him with supersonic speed. With the help and friendship of Tito (Michael Pena), a huge-hearted dreamer who wants bigger things than helping out at his brother Angelo’s (Luis Guzman) Mexican restaurant, Theo goes Turbo on his way to achieving a dream that defies pretty much every law of nature there is.

For the most part, Turbo coasts by on its easy, silly charm, due largely to its cast of strong supporting characters. Tito is a whirlwind of ideals and energy, and provides great comic relief and emotional support for his gastropod buddy. The crew of racing snails who serve initially as Turbo’s rivals and later his friends are all fun in their own ways – particularly reckless ringleader Whiplash, who’s voiced by Samuel L. Jackson with characteristic panache. The character of Chet is a particular triumph: his constant fretting over his younger brother is genuinely touching, even as he suffers from a case of mistaken identity that provides the film with its best running gag.

What keeps Turbo from going into hyper-drive is the niggling sense that something about the film’s premise just isn’t quite right. Turbo’s graduation from tomato garden to race track is, quite frankly, nonsensical. Of course, animated movies have created magic out of nonsense before. But, for some reason, it’s tough to buy this particular story, especially when the moral it peddles (‘you can achieve your wildest dreams if incredibly good fortune turns you into a freak of nature and the entire universe bends to your will’) is considerably murkier than usual. That makes Turbo an awkward hero to root for, especially since his need for speed seems to be pretty much his sole defining trait.

Forgive the film its odd plot, and Turbo is a largely inoffensive, enjoyable experience. Viewers young and old alike will be entertained by the glimpses afforded into the world of a working snail, and there are some visual bursts of imagination (as Theo imagines himself into Gagné’s world via a television screen) that are a joy to witness. Dig a little deeper in Theo’s tomato patch, however, and you might find yourself coming up empty.

Basically: A muddled attempt to look beyond the shell and the slime to find the snail within.

The Croods (2013)

There haven’t been a whole lot of films set in the prehistoric age – probably because it would be pretty difficult to convince a modern audience that glamourous movie stars like Nicolas Cage or Emma Stone can play backwards cave-people togged out in animal skins who grunt their dialogue at one another. Thank goodness, then, for animated movies, where the unimaginable can be made real. Silly, fun and surprisingly emotional, The Croods transports viewers back to an almost recognisable world on the brink of destruction – and shows us how little has changed when it comes to the age-old notions of love and family.

Feisty, curious cavegirl Eep (voiced by Stone) just wants to explore the world around her. Her cautious, protective dad Grug (Cage), however, just wants to keep her holed up in the cave with the rest of her family, tucked away from the dangers and predators lurking in the outside world. But, when the world’s tectonic plates start shifting, Grug’s attempts to control everything around him quite literally fall to pieces. The Croods are forced to undertake a road trip to safety, led by Guy (Ryan Reynolds), an unlikely innovator intent on following the light.

To be honest, the plot at the heart of The Croods isn’t a very strong one. During the course of the movie, try not to get too frustrated if it doesn’t seem obvious at all why Guy’s way is always presented as the right way. There isn’t an explanation for it, really; it’s just the way the plot has been set up, and it’s something the audience will have to take on faith, as must the Croods and especially Grug.

The real strength of the film, however, comes in its emotional logic. The relationships between Grug and his mostly ungrateful clan are wonderfully developed, from his fierce bickering with Gran (Cloris Leachman) through to his tender, unappreciated devotion to Eep. After spending much of the film fretting, flailing and generally failing at protecting his family in the only way he knows how, Grug is the character who’ll break your heart, scoop up the pieces, and put it back together again.

That’s not to say that The Croods is purely a broody family drama. In fact, it’s one of the loosest, loopiest animated films in a long time – the jokes come quicksilver fast, pinging all over the screen in a surreal mix of wordplay and sight gags. Grug et al also exist in a beautifully-realised animated environment. The production design is breathtaking: the Croods themselves are caveman-strong and appealing all at once, and share their movie with a host of fascinating creatures, including an increasingly endearing giant sabre tooth kitty.

If the film’s narrative structure doesn’t make all that much sense – well, there are worse crimes for a movie to commit. Packed with real, relatable characters and truly gorgeous eye candy, The Croods is a prehistoric road trip into the heart of the Stone Ages that’s remarkably relevant for anyone who’s been driven to distraction by their family… but loves them to the ends of the earth anyway.

Basically: A rambunctious family road trip that’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

Written for F*** Magazine

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

It’s pretty rare for what appears on the surface to be a generic romantic comedy packed with the usual hijinks and misunderstandings between the male and female leads to garner the unusually positive reviews Definitely, Maybe did upon release in the US earlier this year. That’s because, as you’ll soon realise a few minutes into this film, DM isn’t a generic romantic comedy at all. Sure, it has some of the trappings of the genre, mixing cute guy Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) up with a trio of ladies who could all very well be the mother of his precocious daughter Maya (Abigal Breslin). What’s happening, you see, is that – on the brink of finalising his divorce from his wife – Will is finally telling Maya the story of her mother and how she came to be with Will. Except he also tells her about the two other great loves in his life… and Maya has to guess which one is her mom. Sure, the concept when spelt out so starkly sounds kitschy and rather as if it were trying to be cute for the sake of being cute. Making your daughter guess which of your girlfriends was her mom? Do you have money for her future therapy bills on hand?

Fortunately, all DM suffered from was a bit of an image problem. It was sold as a generic rom-com, rather than as the smart, sweet film it actually is. Told by Will to his daughter, each story and each girlfriend comes back to vivid life in the form of flashbacks: as Will leaves his first girlfriend Emily (Elizabeth Banks) to work as a young politico in New York; as he meets feisty copygirl April (Isla Fisher) at his new job and chats to her about her love for travel and Jane Eyre first editions; as he first encounters the determinedly independent journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz) while embarking on his own career in political advertising. The story hangs together surprisingly well as Will brings Maya through each relationship – we watch Will’s affections grow for each girl, and falter when they break up, and Maya’s curiosity about the identity of her mother becomes infectious. The audience never quite knows which girl Will ends up with, because (and this is where the film is really quite artful) each relationship is built up so credibly and with so much care and love that it’s entirely plausible he ends up with any one of the three women… and also that he could be on the verge of divorcing the one he did finally marry.

Now, as you can imagine, that’s no easy feat to pull off. DM does suffer occasionally from the usual smoke and mirrors that characterise most generic rom-coms. Some tenuous links are made, such as how Will meets Summer because she shares a sordid childhood secret with Emily. But these are kept to a bare minimum, and in fact barely feature in the main story. Instead, each character is brought to genuine life. Will comes across as a wonderfully realised human being: he is a guy you’d recognise from the street, rather than a deliciously flawed archetype to be reformed, or a rakishly charming prince who’s perfect in every way. As he has his heart broken by Emily, misses a chance with April and falls almost too deeply in love with Summer, it feels real and genuine, not contrived the way some of the schmoopier rom-coms can be. None of the women is shortchanged the way they might be in a less ambitious film either: it’s easy to understand why Will falls for each girl, and why each relationship ends when it does.

The cast really steps up to the plate as well. Reynolds has always had an easy charm and affability that has stood him in good stead in less intellectually demanding fare targeted at younger audiences, whether it’s his outing in frat boy grossout comedy Van Wilder or his television show Two Guys, A Girl And A Pizza Place. With this, he proves he’s capable of taking on a role that isn’t purely comic – he gets the dramatic tone of the film just right, whether he’s drunkenly confessing his ardour for April at the worst possible time, or realising that he’s reached a point with Summer when he has to decide whether to stay with her or break up.

He’s ably matched by a luminous trio of actresses: Banks doesn’t get much to work with as Emily, but she does infuse some palpable chemistry into her scenes with Reynolds. Weisz is lovely as usual, softening the edges on the brusque, direct Summer and making her vulnerability and love for Will clearer than they probably were on the page. The real standout, though, is Fisher – her spunky April is one of the highlights of what is already an impressive cast of characters. She’s smart and sassy, but in a way that’s endearing rather than offputting, and her friendship with Will progresses in such a believable, sweet way that the complications they encounter feel natural rather than forced.

Having said all that, I have a feeling that the amount of love I have for this movie probably still doesn’t come across too well. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched such a smart, romantic movie that was at once wildly romantic, bittersweet and real. Boasting a cast of characters I’d be happy to spend more time with, DM is without a doubt one of the best films I’ve seen this year… I can only hope that, in the years to come, it doesn’t labour under the indignity of being known as a mere ‘romantic comedy’ and is recognised for the well-written, intelligent adult drama it is.