Release: September 22, 2015
Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Tagline: An EPIC review for an EPIC series, but is Fury Road worth all the praise? Oh what a review, what a LOVELY REVIEW!
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Gay: Devil Boner asks the Meninists if they are gay after realizing their mission statement is that they hate hot women and want more buff, shirtless men. They aren't, but are not anti-gay either.
- Affectionate Parody: The entire review is a homage to the film itself.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- Weird Ass Guitar Guy riding into battle with a flaming guitar/rocket launcher, while wearing a blindfold, and shooting shark-shaped explosions out of his eyes is epic, but he's completely ineffectual and as the Critic points out, makes no sense.
- Basically any thing Joe's men, including Devil Boner, do during the chase. Their inexplicable ability to make their car run faster with stop-motion stares works too well and causes them to go past the people they are trying to catch up with, their "exploding sticks" (read bazookas) are so big they struggle to grab it behind the car, and the stick used by Devil Boner results in him falling from his car.
- Bad Boss: True to his name, Impractical Joe wastes his henchmen by launching them directly at the Critic and realizes too late that they would have been more useful managing the gadgets on his vehicle.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: See Laser-Guided Karma below for the Meninists below. Afterwards the President rewards all the woman with a Tom Hardy movie marathon... and then telling them he's a Method Actor (and infamous for his drastic body changes for the films), causing Hyper and the other fangirls to groan.
- And the fact one of those movies is Star Trek: Nemesis.
- Berserk Button: Everyone reacts with either confusion, rage of death threats to Critic stating he likes Beyond Thunderdome the best.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After having to bail out of his car, Devil Boner blames milking the slow motion shot so the audience could get it, for why he's so far behind now.
- The Cameo: For the third time, Honest Trailers' Jon Bailey reappears to announce "Autobots, transform!" to forcibly transform Michael Bay's CGI car into a robot.
- Cannot Talk to Women: The Meninists are defeated this way due to having no screen to hide behind.
- Character Development:
- The Critic realizes that this element may have helped Mad Max become more sympathetic in this film compared to the three previous ones.
- In the review, Hyper has got over her obsession with Critic and while she's still shallow and hypocritical, is much less "No" Means "Yes" than usual.
- Chekhov's Gun: Weird Ass Guitar Guy's ability to shoot shark-shaped explosions seems like just a random gag, but this is also how he ends up killing Joe.
- Clip Show: Subverted. While stills from all four movies are shown, no footage is actually used.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Towards the end, the Critic comes around and finally realizes that Fury Road's main appeal is its simplicity and focus on the "Show, Don't Tell" element, reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even Devil Boner, manliness incarnate, is having a headache over the Meninists' insane train of logic.
- Fanboy:
- The Critic deems himself more of a fan of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and is skeptical of whether Fury Road deserves all the accolades. In fact, the main focus of the review is of him trying to find out why.
- Impractical Joe and his men, along with Devil Boner and Curiosa, are fanboys of the film. Of course, Curiosa is more open to listen to the Critic.
- Fangirl: The Tom Hardy Fangirls.
- Fastball Special: Combined with We Have Reserves, Joe launches his men onto the Critic and Curiosa's car.
- Hype Backlash: In-Universe. At the beginning, Critic experiences this with Fury Road. He thinks it's a great movie, but doesn't understand why it is as highly regarded as it is. However, after a long conversation with Curiosa, he comes to the realization of just how smart it really is underneath it all, and that there's not a single second that he could imagine skipping, in comparison to his previous favorite, Thunderdome. He concludes that it genuinely is as amazing as everyone says it is.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: None of the shots taken by Weird Ass Guitar Guy, or even this episode's version of the Polecats, can hit the broad side of a mountain.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After all the bitching the Meninists have done about women being able to do things men do, M-Obamanote spontaneously announces that all women will be removed from the army... and rewarded with a Tom Hardy marathon, while all the Meninists are to be recruited in their place and immediately deployed, much to their horror.
- Meaningful Name: Furiosa (Tamara) is renamed "Curiosa", reflecting her willingness to listen to the Critic's (initial) skepticism towards Fury Road, as well as her function as an Audience Surrogate.
- Oh, Crap!: Weird Ass Guitar Guy's reaction (through strumming his guitar to make an "uh-oh"-like sound) when he realizes Joe is going to use him as ammunition. Joe also has this reaction when he's about to crash right into Weird Ass Guitar Guy as well.
- Running Gag: Nobody can believe that Thunderdome is Critic's favorite Mad Max film.
- Scooby Stack: Impractical Joe, Devil Boner and Fan Boy do this as they watch the Critic get away.
- Serious Business: Impractical Joe proclaiming "Nobody likes Thunderdome the best in my cave... house... thingy!" Then chasing Critic over it for the rest of the review.
- Straw Misogynist: Meninists, of course.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After finally having had enough of the Meninists' hypocritical misogyny, Devil Boner calls bullshit on their claim that women shouldn't be doing things men usually do, when they aren't doing those same things.Devil Boner: If you're in the future what being a man is, slap a fucking vagina on me!
- Take That!: While the review pulls some jabs on mindless fanboys/fangirls, much of its vitriol is aimed at so-called "men's rights activists" (labeled here as "Meninists") who criticized the film for having a powerful female lead (i.e., Charlize Theron as Furiosa). Their leader was also identified as Michael Bay (infamous for overly macho films where women are usually typecast as helpless), to which the Critic and Curiosa groan in consternation.
- Temporarily a Villain: Devil Boner temporarily sides with both Impractical Joe and later the Meninists, at least until the latter group gets on his nerves with their constant rants.
- Testosterone Poisoning: Most of Devil Boners moments are this, until he meets up the Meninists, who sicken him with their wussy nonsense.
- Villain Ball: Joe launching all his men at the Critic not only does nothing of use and leaves him without any Mooks, but it also lead to a Hoist by His Own Petard moment when Weird Ass Guitar Guy accidentally kills him after being launched out.
- Windmill Crusader: The Menimists are portrayed at this instead of focusing on elements in films that they claim are sexist against men. Such as claiming that Happy Feet is having the male penguins take care of the eggs while the females hunt assuming it's all some feminist agenda... except as Devil Boner points out that's how penguins work in the real world.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: On seeing the Critic with an iron muzzle, Curiosa says "Worst... braces... ever."
You will walk the red carpet, sugared and glazed.
