Yahoo Movies The 'Hobbs & Shaw' plot hole that's got people scratching their heads
Clearly the Fast & Furious movies aren't Ken Loach.
Everyone is fully aware that stark realism isn't the strong point of the franchise which once featured a muscle car jumping from one skyscraper to another.
But the new spin-off movie, Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, appears to have crossed a line.
In it, we're asked to believe that Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw and Vanessa Kirby's Hattie Shaw are brother and sister, the offspring of Helen Mirren's Magdalene 'Queenie' Shaw.
Fair enough, in theory it could be the case that Stath, 52, and The Crown’s Kirby, 31, could technically be siblings who are 21 years apart, given some unusual circumstances.
But credulity becomes a little stretched in the flashback childhood sequences, when we're expected to swallow that they're just a few years apart and playing together.
Read more: Hobbs & Shaw launches to $180m
It hasn't gone unnoticed.
Despite all of the unbelievable things in #hobbsandshaw what bothered me most is that Jason Stathan’s (real age 52 but looks 62) character is apparently suppose to be close in age to Vanessa Kirby’s (real age 31 but looks 21) character since they are shown as children together.
— Blaise (@Blaise2015) August 2, 2019
#HobbsAndShaw is a film that suggests Vanessa Kirby (b. 1988) and Jason Statham (b. 1967) were children at the same time
— Angie J. Han (@ajhan) July 31, 2019
as a #FastAndFurious fanboy, i can suspend my disbelief. 20 mile long runways & cybernetic superhumans: a-ok in my book. but in #HobbsAndShaw, they really expect us to believe Vanessa Kirby & Jason Statham are around the same age?? no way, josé! that is where i draw the line!!
— Jerson David Ambion (@jersonORdavid) August 2, 2019
There is a 21 year age difference between Jason Statham and Vanessa Kirby.
— Gennifer Hutchison (@GennHutchison) August 5, 2019
Still, despite this contempt for its audience's intelligence – unless, of course, it was a mistake – fans of the franchise have come out in sizeable droves.
The movie has gone straight to number one in the US and world box office charts, with an opening of over $180 million.
Read more: David Leitch interested in directing Blade
While it comes in third place for debut weekends in the franchise (dwarfed by the number one, The Fate of the Furious which opened to $541 million), it's not bad going for the first spin-off film in the series.
And there could be more to come, according to director David Leitch.
He told Screenrant: “My intention was - and I hope that the studio hears that - is that we wanted to build a world that was fertile ground for spin-offs.
“When I came on board, the idea was, 'How can I immediately with this film, strike a pose to build out Hobbs' and Shaw's individual worlds so that they could do their own their own films?'
“But then also, characters in that world could have the ability to do their own, as well.”
Hobbs & Shaw is out now across the UK.
