Hobbes and Shaw
Ten Second Review: It’s Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Idris Elba beating each other up with a huge budget while a story happens in the background...and yet it’s endearingly self aware.
As soon as you saw the trailer for Hobbes and Shawyou know what the film was: a money grab using semi established characters from a waining franchise that capitalised on some of the biggest box office draws in the world. The question was, after seeing the trailer and posters for the 800th time, was it going to be unwatchable in the worst way?
Fresh off their last scrapes (assumedly something along the lines of wrestling a supercharged elephant to save the world from the chemical weapon inevitably embedded in its tusks...or something equally ridiculous), Hobbes and Shaw are doing some small time missions for their respective agencies. When Shaw’s sister (a shockingly attractive British agent, as the film makes a point to highlight) is compromised, both are called to find her. An increasingly ridiculous plot ensues that will involve a world ending virus, a bionic villain and no less than 800 accent changes from Vanessa Kirby.
Hear me out...Hobbes and Shawmight just be one of the summer’s best films. When the Met gala decided its theme for this year was to be Camp I must admit I came over all excited. What I expected was fantastical outfits and theatrical red carpet skits. What we got was a handful of celebrities highlighting that they, rather like the designers and a good chunk of students, had not done the reading. Yes, there was some great moments, who hasn’t ladened praise on Billy Porter at this point, but what I was secretly hoping for never came. Cher (obviously)and The Rock. The problem is that camp requires a self awareness that it seems many celebrities consistently refuse to have and that also means those most at home revelling in a camp aesthetic wouldn’t be caught dead on such a carpet. What was left was people like Porter, Violet Chachki and Kim K (just by turning up) carrying the weight of showing how you serve camp.
If nothing else what Hobbes and Shawdoes is cement Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the current king of camp. Whether we take camp at its definition of an appeal based on bad taste and irony due is subversion of aesthetic standards, or with a more Sontagian definition like “a sensibility that revels in artifice, stylization, theatricalization, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content”, you could not argue that this film is anything other than sheer camp.
Whether the intended audience realises it or not, what they are bearing witness to is a piece of cinema (yes, I said cinema) that is so painfully self aware of itself and what’s its doing that it borders on being a masterpiece.
Characters calling out the ridiculousness of the goings on only to have even their initial expectations surpassed by something even more over the top. Whole unnecessary scenes designed entirely for the viewer to delight in the sheer absurdity of the goings on. Superhuman feats not done by the superhuman but by the human humans with characters all but winking to the camera after you are once again beguiled by their actions. Even the oddly jarring cuts and consistently literal soundtrack only add to make this film feel like an almost subversive in joke.
The film is topped off with an unnecessary final act that exists purely to top everything you’ve seen and assure you that the filmmakers are well aware of the film they’ve made. I wouldn’t want to spoil any of it but rest assured that when you think this film couldn’t best itself, it will find a way.
Hobbes and Shaw, whichever way you cut it, is a great film. It is a well made picture filled with good actors having fun. The action scenes are impeccably choreographed (even if they are consistently ridiculous) and the directorial choices are for the most part interesting and well constructed. Yes, it engages in a fair amount of “Bayhem” but it’s these shots that let the audience know what film their watching (and honestly, what is more camp than “Bayhem”?). If this film had been made by Edgar Wright I have no doubt that people would be cheering it on as a comedy masterpiece but it wouldn’t have the same quality of being quite so Camp. The trick to camp is doing all the serious things without an ounce of seriousness. If you are a big fan of The Fast and Furious Cinematic Universe (hereafter known as the FAFCU) then this is just another instalment of your favourite loveable rogues doing macho stuff and cracking wise. If you’re a fan of a little more nuance, you might just find yourself enjoying this one too.
