Hobbs & Shaw (Of Fast & Furious)2019

Elevator Pitch: A virus which will terminate everyone on the planet, other than the “strong” is ingested by MI6 agent Hattie Shaw and it will become active in 72 hours. On the track is Brixton, an enhanced human working for Eteon. The CIA, activate Hobbs and Shaw to work together to recover the virus. Hattie is Deckard’s sister, which gives them a start. But she has been captured by Eteon and so they must travel, to Moscow, Ukraine and finally Samoa, to overcome the opposition.

Content: No-one, male or female, even gets down to their underwear, well, I didn’t remember, but IMDb says they did. A load of set pieces involving martial arts and gunfire. One prolonged car chase through London, the car, a McLaren being chased by a sort of intelligent motorcycle. Weapons are collected in Moscow, a lot of fighting and in the end rushing about in vehicles in Ukraine and then a lot of stuff in Samoa – to describe it would be a spoiler. During the whole film Hobbs and Shaw bicker.

A View: I absolutely went along with the whole absurd thing until they got to Samoa. Where are we now? Sort of confusing the character of Hobbs with the real Dwayne Johnson, who, if you did not know, is of Samoan ancestry. I won’t dwell, on this third act, but it spoilt it for me, particularly the attempt to be Fast and Furiousish. According to Forbes Magazine the film cost more than $200 million, publicity was assigned another $160 million, so they say it will need to take more than $600 million to make money. But is it worth the ticket price? Probably yes, but not worth sitting through 30 minutes of adverts for.

Additional Info: Apparently this plot was hatched during the making of F&F 8, and Vin Diesel was so petulent that he did not turn up for filming on the day it was announced.