Hobbs & Shaw: A Car Wars Story.

It’s really hard to make a movie like this enjoyable.
As a filmmaker, you have to walk a very thin line, because if just the smallest thing doesn’t work, you could very well end up making one of the worst films of the year.
Even the leads of this film have experience with that.
Just look at some of their previous work, like _Skyscraper_ (which felt like it was made by a committee) or _The Meg_ (which was just flat out incompetent).
Hobbs and Shaw doesn’t make the mistake of equalling stupidity and incompetence.
Still, let there be no mistake about it: this movie is really f*cking stupid.
You can pick the storyline and character choices apart for all you want.
It doesn’t matter, because this film lets you know that it is self-aware of how stupid it is, and instead emphasizes the two things it’s actually good at: action and testosterone filled trash talk.
The action in this is actually really well choreographed, creative, visceral (aside from some CGI during the climax), and edited (aside from some minor overuse of slow motion).
What really makes the film work, though, is the chemistry between The Rock and Jason Statham.
The one element I never cared for in the F&F franchise is the ‘family’ soap opera bullshit, mostly because the actors cannot sell it.
They took the most capable actors (or should I say, the Rock took Jason Statham) from that franchise, those also being the two actors with actually interesting characters, stripped the family focus back, and instead built a 90’s buddy cop film around them.
And it just works, the comedy that comes from those scenes is gold.
I was also surprised by the fact that the female lead in this wasn’t just defined by her booty (there’s actually a surprising lack of booty shots, come to think of it).
All of this makes for a film that is in my opinion better than any of the F&F movies, and about the best version of what a film like this could possibly be.
Sure, it’s empty fun, but it’s done really well, and that’s incredibly rare (trust me, it’s coming from someone who always gets bored during films like this, and had already given up on this movie after the trailers).

6.5/10