From VCR heists to saving the entire world from a virus that melts your insides, The Fast & Furious franchise has long been one of fast and furious reinvention. With a tradition of shifting cast lineups, the car-based franchise saw its crew transition from small-time criminals to world-class agents and assets who global governments call upon when a situation is too big for them to handle. The early days of the Fast franchise, in a sense, saw one spin-off after another. The second movie (the egregiously titled 2 Fast 2 Furious) kept only Paul Walker from the original 2001 flick while adding newcomer Tyrese Gibson into the mix. The third (Tokyo Drift) shifted to another continent entirely and had only the thinnest of connective tissue to previous installations vis-a-vis a throwaway Vin Diesel cameo. It was only when the films jammed everyone together and added Dwayne Johnson into the mix in Fast Five that everything started coming up diesel.

Four films later and the Fast & Furious films are so far removed from any recognizable reality that the idea of Dom and Hobbs and Letty driving their Nos’ed-out cars to space is not only plausible, it’s a trending news bite. And this perhaps is part of the problem of constant acceleration. The incessant need to top previous endeavors always leads to the same road. And that road is reliably an onramp to sharksville.

Hobbs & Shaw, through not officially part of the numbered Fast & Furious lineage, tweaks what has become a successful formula, often in the wrong direction. By stripping back the ensemble nature and putting all the eggs in the basket of the two meatball side characters, the omelet ends up including one too many eggshells. As a side dish, Hobbs and Shaw have proved very enjoyable but their one-note prepubescent shtick wears thin when it’s all that’s being dished up. I love a little paprika on my Eggs Benedict but that doesn’t mean I want a tablespoon plopped on top. More is indeed not always merrier.

Of all the plots from Mission Impossible movies to rip off, Hobbs & Shaw for some reason decides to borrow the premise of the unanimously agreed upon worst entry, MI2. We begin with an attack on Mi6 agents securing a payload. Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) must inject herself with a deadly programmable virus as a last measure to keep it out of the hands of the genetically-enhanced Brixton (Idris Elba), a souped-up goon who snidely refers to himself as “Black Superman”. US and British intelligence offices throw up their hands and speed dial Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw who are forced to work through their differences to save the world and reunite their famillliieeessssss.

With John Wick and Deadpool director David Leith behind the camera, audiences expect both well-staged action sequences and a heavy dose of churlish clap-backs. The result is decidedly more mixed than it ought to be with the big action set pieces occasionally reaching a gleeful level of ludicrous (when the Rock jumps from rappelling bad guy to rappelling bad guy down a skyscraper, for instance) but even moreso it’s pretty rote and unimaginative and not all that fun to watch. There’s plenty of visits to slam town and vroom-vrooming car chases but no instantly iconic sequences like Fast Five’s vault heist, Fast & Furious 6’s infinity runway sequence or even Fate of the Furious’ insane submarine face-off. The practical choreography far outshines the digital work, the gravity-ignoring action sequences often taking on a plastic Gumby-esque nature, but I guess that’s to be expected when you have a WWE star and an ex-professional diver and stuntman as your top billed dudes. As far as the churlishness goes, the script from long time Fast & Furious screenwriter Chris Morgan misses wide too often but gets in a few good cracks. Part of the problem is the not knowing to quit when they’re ahead. When Shaw likens Johnson to “a fat tattooed baby”, it’s funny. When he’s making the tenth joke about the size of his sausage, not so much. So too do some of the pop culture jokes miss the mark (the multiple Game of Thrones jokes are frankly just bizarre) and the deep rolodex of extended cameos earn laughs but majorly shift the tone and nature of the very film.

Everyone who’s already bought their tickets and the countless more lining up at the theater doors know exactly what they came for and that’s a Jason vs. Johnson showdown and, despite my reservations with the final result, they’re going to get exactly that. Statham leans on his rogue machiavellian charm and crusty wit while Johnson capitalizes on his (admittedly overplayed) likable beefcake persona. Statham’s mimicry cuts deeper than his opponents with the Rock’s line readings usually going down the exact direct you would expect. Despite being the highest paid actor in the world, Johnson doesn’t seem to grasp the Simple Jack mockery that is Morgan’s dialogue, or else he wouldn’t read “You learn a lot about someone by the way they fight” so straight. It’s a joke! Lighten up man. Playing off one another in a never-ending game of oneupmanship, Statham and Johnson convey a type of jealous brotherly conviction but, like a condom used more than once, the ribbing wears thin.

Even though it’s Hobbs and Shaw taking the marquee real estate, it’s an over-the-top Idris Elba, a half-man, half-car superhuman, coughing out ridiculous one-liners like “genocide shmneocide”, and the pesky, smoky-voiced Vanessa Kirby who steal the show. Elba bellows his ham, serving it up with extra honey and canned pineapple slices, while Kirby becomes the closest thing to a real human being with real inner feelings. While the two starring tough guys battle it out through unceasingly displays of ma-cheesy-mo, Elba’s chewing the scenery to bits and Kirby’s trying desperately to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

From a technical standpoint, Hobbs & Shaw is a bit all across the map, bumping a trashy soundtrack with some super questionable musical selections and featuring a fistful of action set sequences that reek of middling CGI. Ultimately, it just doesn’t look all that great. Even for a glorified live-action Looney Toon, the effects can be dizzyingly gummy and nonsensical. A scene that shifts from dark to day to dark all within the confines of a 30-minute running timer was the funniest part of the whole movie. And when a movie is only leaving you in stitches accidentally, well, that’s it’s probably time to bring the clunker into a bodyshop for a much-needed overhaul.

CONCLUSION: Even for a franchise that requires the numbing of one’s cerebral activity, ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ is the country bumpkin of the Fast & Furious bunch, the star’s frenemy tough guy antics running out of steam while the movie’s action sequences often fail to live up to the franchise’s zany high standards.