The Fast And The Furious franchise has a curious history where only the odd-numbered ones are any good, and even then you have to make like game developer Valve and forget the number 3 exists.

In this fine tradition, wherein over 50% of your films are terrible, sits The Fast And The Furious The Hobbs And The Shaw and, while it’s a spin-off, it’s technically the 9th film in the series – and conforming to said tradition, it’s amazing!

There’s so much to love about The Fast And The Furious The Hobbs And The Shaw, namely all the different things you could name that are in it.

Such as e.g. for example The Rock and Jason Statham and their runtime-long over-the-top bickering, played up to an unrealistic degree… but given “people are loving The Rock and Jason Statham bickering in the latest F&F movie, wouldn’t it be great if there was an entire movie of just that?” was the entire reason this film even got made in the first place, this isn’t just expected, it’s welcome.

Such as e.g. for example the plot making not a great deal of sense but that not mattering because it’s just a collection of absurd enjoyable action sequences and “banter”, the audience knows this, and the film knows this. It’s not winking at the camera exactly, but it knows what it is, in the way the F&F films always do, and it works as well as it’s ever done before.

Such as e.g. for example one fight sequence in particular, which is shot So Damned Well it’s immediately up there with The Raid and John Wick in Steve’s Internal List Of Fight Scenes He Really Likes A Lot Which Only Exists In His Head.

Anyway I need to make a smoothie. T’ra.