Hobbs & Shaw Trailer Shows Fast & Furious Has Fully Given Into Its Superhero Leanings

There's only one way to describe the new trailer for the Fast and Furious spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw: bonkers. With Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprising their respective roles from the franchise, the two perennially at-odds hotheads take on an international terrorist named Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). The film also stars Vanessa Kirby, of The Crown and Mission: Impossible – Fallout fame, as Hattie Shaw, sister to Statham's character. Hobbs & Shaw is set two years after the events of that boring The Fate of the Furious, aka Fast and Furious 8.

The new Hobbs & Shaw trailer starts with a bit of banter between Luke Hobbs (Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Statham). It then sets up the film's villain, Brixton (Elba), who announces he has “unfinished business” with Hobbs and Shaw on the giant video displays in London's Piccadilly Circus. Brixton then explains why: Hattie (Kirby) stole a virus that can apparently wipe out half of the world's population. Wait, a potential female Thanos is somehow one of the good guys? Well, Shaw was a villain not so long ago, so clearly good and bad are relative terms in the world of Fast and Furious.

Shaw tries to explain that it's just “family business” but Hattie convinces Hobbs that “the only way to survive is by working together, like a team.” The Hobbs & Shaw trailer then moves into a higher gear, throwing up unbelievable action after action, which would feel a lot more at home in a superhero film. And the film isn't undoing that unknowingly, the franchise has been headed in this direction for a while. To further drive the point home, Brixton — who's apparently “genetically enhanced” — even calls himself “black Superman”.

Hobbs decides they need to get off the grid and head home to Samoa. Brixton naturally follows them there and it leads to a chaotic showdown using “old school” weapons, because Hobbs' mom got rid of guns. But wait, why aren't Brixton & Co. using their guns? Please excuse us for trying to find logic in Fast and Furious.

And if the trailer wasn't already bonkers enough, it ends with a truly over-the-top action set-piece, which involves a bunch of cars and a helicopter chained together. You just have to see it for yourself to believe it.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw releases August 2 in India. It has been directed by Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde's David Leitch, off a script by Fast and Furious veteran Chris Morgan.