WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, in theaters now.
The Fast and the Furious franchise has introduced some notorious villains over the course of eight films. We've seen Braga and Fenix, arms dealers who used Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) to perform heists, and Luke Evans' Owen Shaw. Then came Charlize Theron's cyberterrorist Cipher, not to mention Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw, before he turned a new leaf in the Fate of the Furious. However, in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, the franchise gets its most sinister villain to date in the mysterious Eteon.
Eteon represents an organization as much as it does a person. For the duration of the film, we don't see the face of this male voice, represented by an artificial intelligence-like construct that appears like sound waves. Think of Ultron's voice before he found a body in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a black-market company, Eteon is neck deep in arms and terrorism, kicking the franchise up a notch by primarily dealing in viruses intended to wipe out mankind. Eteon doesn't merely create them in its numerous scientific firms, the company also locates Europe's top scientists and reconfigures their vaccines, treating them like intellectual property.
Eddie Marsan's Prof. Andreiko is one such scientist; Deckard, Dwayne Johnson's Luke Hobbs and Deckard's sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) try to keep his Snowflake virus, in the latter's bloodstream, away from Eteon. The film's post-credits scene suggests Eteon's arsenal and reach are even greater, as there's another flesh-eating virus the company has seemingly gotten its hands on. And as Hobbs & Shaw illustrates, they're taking technology and science to a new level, as seen with Idris Elba's Brixton.
After Shaw shot him during their old MI6 days, Brixton was saved and fitted with cybernetic enhancements, turning him into a super-soldier. He has healing abilities, bulletproof suits, durability, superhuman strength and agility, and he can control drones with his minds.
Eteon also recruits elite killers from around the world -- it tries to co-opt Hobbs and Deckard too -- to build a legion that doesn't merely start world wars. Eteon believes mankind has looted the planet's resources, so it seeks a reboot.
What's so scary is, apart from chemical warfare, Eteon owns several media companies, and controls how more than half of the world operates. The company deals in consumerism, and has been secretly pulling the strings of the masses for decades; a perfect example comes in how Eteon gets so many news outlets to frame Hobbs and Shaw. In the blink of an eye, they're fugitives, even on social media. Apart from controlling the flow of information, we don't know what else Eteon is dabbling in, or who's actually behind the voice. Eteon's ruthless nature is succinctly summed up when Brixton is deemed expendable after Hobbs and Shaw beat him. He's deprogrammed and killed remotely.
Before cutting communications, however, Eteon tells Hobbs they actually share a history together and will be meeting soon again, so that hints it's just as much a cerebral enemy as it is a physical one. With apocalyptic armies and catastrophic weapons at its disposal, plus mind games galore, it seems Hobbs will be needed Dom and the rest of the gang for the return bout.
Directed by David Leitch (Deadpool 2) from a script by longtime Fast & Furious veteran Chris Morgan, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw stars Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba and Vanessa Kirby.