Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw (2019)

This is topic Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw (2019) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=002439

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 08-02-2019, 05:46 PM:

CINEMA: B&B Ankeny 12 & B-Roll Bowling, Ankeny, IA
AUDITORIUM: 2, SEAT: D11
PRESENTATION: B&B GRAND Auditorium Recline-o-Vision with butt warmers, DTS:X, and projection from freaking lqser beqms
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Three stars (out of four)

Ticket Taker sees me holding up my phone with the QR code ticket and points to the snack bar. "They'll have to scan your ticket over there," he says.

I glare. He gives look that he feels appropriately stupid.

I stand in line for the concession girl. "They didn't plug his scanner into the charger last night," she explains. Considering about half the time they don't staff this position at all to begin with and I walk straight to the auditorium with nobody saying a word, why are they bothering now?

THE PLOT: Something about saving the world from a virus? Wackiness ensues.

Previously on The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift: Han is killed when a Mercedes rams his car and it done blows up.

Previously on Fast & Furious 6: The driver of the Mercedes is revealed to be Deckard Shaw, who did it ON PURPOSE.

Previously on Furious 7: The gang holds a funeral for Han and swears to take down Shaw, but are immediately distracted by some dumb international crisis Kurt Russel cooks up. Shaw watches them from afar, wondering why they no longer care about him.

Previously on The Fate of the Furious: If you can't get 'em to engage you, join 'em?

Poor Han.

Basically you've got two unlikely and mostly unwilling partners recruited by the CIA to bring down a guy who calls himself Black Superman (Black Six Million Dollar Man would have been more accurate). It's big and dumb and funny as hell and has some seriously impressive action scenes, particularly the climax scene with a helicopter. Idris Elba is a phenomenal bad guy, and Ryan Reynolds shows up a few times with a very Deadpool-like persona that is hilarious.

You will spend 75 percent of this movie grinning from ear to ear. This is a serious crowd pleaser popcorn movie.

Posted by Chris Haller (Member # 9206) on 08-06-2019, 12:50 AM:

CINEMA: Cinemark Tinseltown USA, Rochester, NY
AUDITORIUM: 7, then 8
PRESENTATION: Whatever Cinemark rolled out for their 4K upgrades
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Arrived at 10pm for the 10pm show in Theater 7. Trailers and movie played without the entire right stage channel. Not even like a few speakers out, just the entire channel gone. I checked my watch and noted I had enough time to dip out and start the 10:25 show in Theater 8, which is one of their two largest theaters. This theater has side masking, which is generally set before the show begins; there is no transition, which worried me when I sat for previews with the masking set to 1.85:1. I was then treated to all previews and the entire feature in pillarboxed and letterboxed 2.35:1. At least the entire 5.1 soundfield was functioning properly during this show, even if it wasn't terribly impressive. Awesome.
RATING: Two Stars (out of four)

The movie was almost as entertaining as it was difficult to find a screen that was running it properly.

Shaw and Hobbs, two characters from the Fast and Furious movies, have to team up to save the world from a deadly supervirus. The mission forces them to reflect on what it means to have a family, and the responsibility that brings to the table. Cars crash, windows blow out, punches are thrown, and one liners are delivered with minimal cringe. The script isn't very strong, but the three leads, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, and Vanessa Kirby do the best work possible with what they've been given. Idris Elba is wasted by the bland action script as a villain.

At the end of the day, it was just sort of there. Parts of it were fun, and others were slow and clunky, especially the first of the big car chases in the film through London. It wasn't a waste of time, but it definitely was no Mission Impossible: Fallout.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-08-2019, 04:33 PM:

I've seen a lot of buddy comedies that are a lot funnier and more entertaining than this.

"Fuck you, I don't like your face" isn't witty repartee.

The storyline is pretty thin, there's just enough there to provide an excuse to rip around on motorcycles and stage some fistfights and wrestling matches.

It has apparently become compulsory for every new action movie to take place in at least four and preferably six or more cities around the world. An appeal to international audiences I suppose.

Based on the reviews and comments I expected this movie to be pretty good. What a letdown.

Oh well. Hopefully there will be a big crowd coming to see it. [beer]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-09-2019, 12:15 PM:

Along with the multiple locations, the other thing a lot of movies are starting to have in common is, the need to "save the world" if not the galaxy or the entire universe.

What ever happened to just having the hero get the girl at the end?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-09-2019, 12:51 PM:

This multiple international locations thing being good for marketing towards international audiences must be an Hollywood urban legend.

We Europeans are perfectly fine with seeing the same Northern American cities being destroyed by aliens, monsters, natural disasters, asteroids and zombies over and over again. [Wink]

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-10-2019, 12:06 AM:

People aren't too invested in finding out how this movie ends.

The power went out here for about five seconds about fifteen minutes before the end of the movie (during the big fight scene at the foot of the cliff). I announced that the movie will restart in ten minutes, and about two thirds of the customers got up and left. I'm sure that everyone would have stayed if they were really interested in how it turns out, so I don't think most people are particularly interested in the movie after they have watched it to that point.

Posted by James Biggins (Member # 8574) on 08-10-2019, 07:15 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
What ever happened to just having the hero get the girl at the end?

Too gender specific? [Wink]

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-10-2019, 11:11 AM:

I'm looking forward to the new Bond reboot, where James Bond will be played by a black... sorry, "deep skinned" bisexual female...