Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham trade insults, punches in wildly inconsistent 'Hobbs & Shaw'

“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” - ★ ½

I've never seen a movie title “present” another movie title before. How exactly does that work?

Nonetheless, “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” hits theaters this week as a spectacular, wildly inconsistent and occasionally incoherent mess of a buddy action-comedy, one that gives the “Transformers” films stiff competition for superficiality, fumbled attempts at heartfelt drama and visual bloat.

For readers just joining the FFCU (“Fast and Furious Cinematic Universe”), the titular characters Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw joined the series in James Wan's 2015 chapter “Furious 7.”

American agent Hobbs, played by testosterone genetic experiment Dwayne Johnson, and British ex-military Shaw, played by .45-caliber bullet Jason Statham, go rogue in the franchise's first stand-alone spinoff, a flashy pastiche of “The Terminator,” 007's “On Her Majesty's Secret Service” and “Mission: Impossible 2.”

A cyber-genetically enhanced super anarchist named Brixton (cosmic force of nature Idris Elba) stages a commando attack to steal a deadly virus that can be programmed to kill only specified DNA targets by turning their organs into liquefied mush.

The ramifications of this weapon stagger the imagination, for in the hands of supremacists, it could be used for absolute ethnic cleansing or racial obliteration.

The movie passes up the opportunity to be a parable for our political times. Instead, the virus simply serves as a macguffin to kick-start a story more interested in insane chases, slick CGI stunts, juvenile insults, and lighthearted depictions of torture and violence that have become the hallmarks of the “Fast & Furious” franchise.

But wait.

The cyborgian Brixton fails to secure the virus. A British MI6 agent named Hattie Shaw (“The Crown” star Vanessa Kirby) injects it into her own body and escapes, thwarting the bad guy. (We know this because Brixton actually says to us: “I'm the bad guy!”)

Hattie Shaw turns out to be Deckard's estranged kid sister, and the delightful highlight of this male-dominated movie.

Lithe and wiry like a human spring, Kirby's Hattie becomes a 21st-century Emma Peel (the cult heroine of the quirky 1960s British TV series “The Avengers”).

Tough, sexy and supremely confident, Kirby holds her own against her uber masculine co-stars. Those stiletto boomerang eyebrows don't hurt a bit, either.

Hattie joins the feuding agents to keep the virus away from the persistent Brixton and his platoons of henchmen with extremely poor marksmanship.

“Hobbs & Shaw,” directed by “Deadpool 2” filmmaker David Leitch, runs an unwieldy two hours and 16 minutes, enabling the heroic trio to bounce all over the globe and to take a very lengthy pit stop in Hobbs' native Samoa. (Had Leitch not overdosed on cliched slow-motion shots, his movie could have moved much faster.)

In the climactic battle on Samoa, “Hobbs & Shaw” evokes the Ewoks in “Return of the Jedi” by pitting Samoan warriors with primitive weapons (sticks, spears, stones) against the high-tech arsenal of evil military-styled enemies.

An outrageous, climactic helicopter/automobile chase comes right out of a classic Tex Avery cartoon, except that the extended battle begins in darkness, then abruptly switches to daylight, then back to darkness with a sudden lightning storm. Could it be a global warming warning?

Fans of the franchise might be satisfied with the formula ingredients in “Hobbs & Shaw,” and especially cameos from Helen Mirren as the Shaw siblings' incarcerated mom, and Ryan Reynold's emotionally needy CIA agent.

But when the most provocative part of a film is an end credits teaser for “Hobbs & Shaw 2,” that can't be good.

<b>Starring:</b> Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Vanessa Kirby, Idris Elba, Helen Mirren, Cliff Curtis

<b>Directed by:</b> David Leitch

<b>Other:</b> A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for language, suggestive material, violence. 136 minutes