Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Out

After nearly two decades of films, the Fast and the Furious franchise is breaking new ground by delivering audiences its first spinoff vehicle, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. The film marks the ninth entry into the saga that kicked off in 2001, yet it focuses on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Hobbs and Jason Statham‘s Shaw, who didn’t appear until the fifth and sixth films, respectively. The franchise might not necessarily be known for its high critical scores, though the films’ box office numbers prove the series has a massive fan base. Ahead of the film’s opening this Friday, its initial Rotten Tomatoes score earns it a “Fresh” rating.

After calculating its initial reviews, Rotten Tomatoes determined that the film earned 76% positive ratings with 34 reviews. As more critics’ scores are compiled, the film recently sat at 71% positive reviews with 55 calculated ratings. The site describes the film, “Hobbs & Shaw doesn’t rev as high as the franchise’s best installments, but gets decent mileage out of its well-matched stars and over-the-top action sequences.”

With the franchise being a global sensation, we can expect dozens more reviews to be collected by the site, which could see the score fluctuate higher or lower by a significant margin. The film will be considered “Fresh” so long as it stays about 60% positive ratings, but won’t be considered “Certified Fresh” until it maintains a score above 75% positive with at least 80 calculated reviews.

Only two films in the franchise have earned the Certified Fresh rating, with Furious 7 earning 81% positive reviews and Fast Five earning 77% positive reviews. In addition to Furious 7 scoring the best reviews, it also had the biggest box office haul, taking in $1.516 billion worldwide.

The lowest-rated film in the franchise is 2009’s Fast & Furious, earning only 29% positive reviews, which was the first film since the original to reunite the franchise’s four main cast members. Despite its poor reviews, that film helped revive the franchise, as it went on to earn $363 million compared to the previous film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, taking in only $158 million worldwide in 2006.

While a 10th film in the franchise is already on the way, the critical and financial success of Hobbs & Shaw could pave the way for more spinoff films in the series or possibly prove that the key component in the franchise’s success is its ensemble cast.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw lands in theaters Friday.

Are you surprised by these numbers? Let us know in the comments below!