This past weekend, Universal Pictures dropped the trailer for the upcoming film Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Like the name implies, the movie is a spin-off of the Fast & Furious franchise, starring two of the more recent additions to the ensemble cast: Dwayne Johnson, back for his fifth appearance as federal agent Luke Hobbs, and Jason Statham, who reprises his role as bad-guy-turned-antihero Deckard Shaw.
As you’re all probably aware, the wildly successful franchise has veered away from its street-racing, JDM-celebrating roots, and has instead turned into something between a James Bond thriller and a Michael Bay explosion-fest. While we’d prefer that the films go back to being about cars, we can forgive the action-movie direction they’ve taken. As the box office figures show, they’re still raking in massive revenue using that formula.
What we can’t forgive, however, is the fact that the filmmakers expect us to forget that Statham’s Shaw was responsible for the death of one of the franchise’s most beloved characters. Seriously, what the hell? We miss Han and his chip-eating, zen-spouting, car-drifting ways, not to mention his natural chemistry with the rest of the cast. It’s not so easy for the rest of us to gloss over that and celebrate Shaw in a lead role.
Anyway, you can check out the trailer for the new film above. If nothing else, it does look entertaining.
