When the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise debuted nearly two decades ago, it was just a fairly standard cop who falls for the bad guys action movie. We’d seen this whole schtick plenty of times before, but Universal made some money and they really wanted to keep it going. Well, after a series of unmemorable sequels they finally got their formula down with the fifth entry in the series. And it’s at this point that they introduced Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and he has become one of the series most revered characters. The next movie in the series introduced Deckard Shaw (Jason Stratham) and over the last few films it was clear that they had a fairly enjoyable bit of antagonistic chemistry.
Which is really all the latest movie spinoff is all about. You take two characters that people already like and throw them into a movie together to make some money. Luckily for audiences, these two actors have a blast insulting each other and punching shit. So, the result is a ridiculously stupid and consistently hilarious time at the movie theater. Now, that doesn’t mean that there is much of a story worth writing about or that you could even call this much of a movie in the traditional sense. It’s just an anti-buddy cop movie that works really hard to entertain.
There are also a couple of new characters that help this flick become as fun as it is. The main one is Deckard’s sister, played by a very able Vanessa Kirby. She is meant to carry the emotional weight of the movie and provide the film with a woman to match all the male testosterone. Which she does with lots of playful dialogue and ass kicking. I’m sure we will see much more of her in action movies in the future. The other main addition is Idris Elba as the villain. He’s not nearly as memorable as a modern day Terminator chasing down the heroes, but he looks cooling kicking ass. So, I guess that doesn’t really matter in a series like this.
The best new characters are technically considered cameos. So, I can’t discuss them, but let’s just say that they are fantastic comedians who have worked with this team of talent in the past. The story here is not really worth discussing. If you have seen ‘Mission Impossible 2’ before then you pretty much know exactly what’s going to happen and if you haven’t then you won’t be surprised anyways. This whole thing is all about watching the characters banter and lots of stunts.
Which is where this movie is a little disappointing in comparison to its most recent brethren. There are plenty of action scenes and a few moments that are pretty cool, but when each of these films seem to have been outdoing the other, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed with the action in this one. No scene comes close to any of the major action sequences in the last four movies. Still, the chemistry between the leads makes up for it and you will be hard pressed not to be entertained.
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