Film Visual Storytelling At It's Finest
It's no surprise to hear that the idea for this movie started with storyboards rather than a script when you see it. Only a few lines of dialogue are spoken throughout however these are given effective performances from their actors. It's the visuals that are he star of the show, much like how it's Furiosa's tale to be told here and Max ends up in the middle of it.
So many movies today try to spoon-feed the story to it's audience. Characters are given too many lines to explain what we have just seen. Hamtastic deliveries or music telling them how they should feel about something instead letting it occur naturally. Mad Max doesn't demean it's audience to this treatment. Simply, if you didn't speak English you could have a solid idea what's going on in this movie.
Truly this is the work of a master of the game.
Film Furious action for a great, epic movie.
I loved this movie. Fast-paced and cool. My favorite is the Doof warrior with the guitar.
So what is it I liked about Mad Max: Fury Road? Well, the characters are all very good, the action is amazing. It says a lot when you can get good entertainment and characterization from actions and driving cars. This is a thrill ride through and through.
Film As Good as the Hype?
I’ve said before that if a movie gets a bunch of bad reviews, it actually works to the film’s benefit when you read them beforehand. Lowering your expectations works wonders for making that movie more enjoyable. The opposite can be a problem though, and when movies like Mad Max: Fury Road gets universal rave reviews (barring the odd frothing MRI), I get paranoid that my expectations are getting set far too highly, and I am doomed to disappointment. Well, allow me to become part of the problem; Mad Max is really that damn good.
We aren’t being presented with some piece of high-brow art here. This is simply a 2 hour long chase movie, in which a guy called Max is helping a robot handed enforcer flee with a bunch of sex slaves across an apocalyptic waste land in an armoured big rig. Essentially, the plot is a blend of Water World and Sucker Punch, only it somehow manages to not be god awful. Mad Max showcase an extraordinary amount of talent where it counts. This film has the best action scenes, car chases and cinematography I have seen in years. Frankenstein monster rat rods kick up Catherine wheels of sand, before exploding in gorgeous displays of orange and scrap. This is well worth buying on blu-ray when it comes out.
The performances are all good too. Our heroes do a marvelous job of selling the zany premise of a destruction derby set in a post-apocalyptic world. They play it incredibly straight faced and even having room for a lot of feels. My wife almost cried twice during the film, which is impressive considering it has a gang of sniper wielding, biker grannies. The most points go to Charlize Theron, who has totally transformed herself into this driven, tired out, deadpan badass, always seconds away from utter despair.
If you haven’t seen this already, go see it already!
Film The Best Max Yet
TLDR version: This movie is one high-speed, high-octane action/chase sequence through a horrific apocalyptic wasteland full of interesting, dynamic, awesome characters, great visuals and effects and a surprisingly deep story.
Full version:
The Plot: A crazy despot called Immortan Joe runs what passes for a twisted version of society on the wasteland by controlling the most valuable things like water, petrol, weapons - and women. He keeps five wives (called "breeders") and literally treats women like cows. Max, who falls into his clutches and is harvested for his universal donor blood, finds himself in a situation where he must team up with one of Immortan Joe's Officers: Imperator Furiosa, who is turning against Joe and helping his wives escape to a mythical "green place" in the desert.
What follows is an hour and a half of bullets, blood, flamethrowers, and assorted insane carnage through the wasteland.
That's not to say though that it's just one action scene after another. Miller knows his stuff, and hits all the right tropes (and avoids the bad ones - you won't be spending Twenty Minutes with Jerks here) and crafts a movie where the action genre is treated with care, respect and grim realism instead of cartoony CGI.
Tom Hardy is good as Max, but Charlize Theron is better as Furiosa, completely stealing the show in every scene she appears. Their dynamic is at the center of the film, and it's what makes it work.
The story is such that the depth of the tale is apparent for those who care about that stuff, and yet keeping it simple and enjoyable for those who just want to see shit blowing up. It's a must watch for action fans.
Overall 8.9/10.
Film HOLY SHIT! THIS IS AWESOME!
Mad Max: Fury Road is the most awesome movie of 2015. They need to make a 'Most Awesome Picture' Oscar just so this movie can win.
The plot is more or less what you'd expect from a Mad Max movie: Max reluctantly gets involved with helping a group of victims, in this case a tyrant's harem, escape to a better life. But that's just a basic 20-minute framework on which to graft two hours of awesome car chases by insane heavy metal wannabe neo-Vikings on the biggest selection of eclectic, dirty, jury-rigged vehicles this side of an Ork warband.
In the first half hour or so, there is a worry that this will turn out to be a very grim and serious movie, but then you see that one of the villain's vehicles has six dudes with wardrums on the back, performing backup to the multi-storey-tall speaker system used by the guy whose entire duty is to play an epic heavy metal solo on a combination electric guitar/flamethrower, and you realise this is the closest we're going to get to River Tam Beats Up Everyone
... but the fact that it's only close isn't a problem, because Fury Road manages to be even more awesome.
Despite an overwhelmingly awesome, diverse, amount of crazy stunts, the action is never difficult to follow, and almost everything is perfectly clear throughout. There is no distracting slow-motion, and it's almost all done with practical effects - the only CGI I noticed was for two short scenes that would have been logistically nigh impossible to do with props.
Seriously. Go see this now. It's outstanding.
If you like this, you might also like:
Film HOLY SHIT! THIS IS AWESOME!
Mad Max: Fury Road is the most awesome movie of 2015. They need to make a 'Most Awesome Picture' Oscar just so this movie can win.
The plot is more or less what you'd expect from a Mad Max movie: Max reluctantly gets involved with helping a group of victims, in this case a tyrant's harem, escape to a better life. But that's just a basic 20-minute framework on which to graft two hours of awesome car chases by insane heavy metal wannabe neo-Vikings on the biggest selection of eclectic, dirty, jury-rigged vehicles this side of an Ork warband.
In the first half hour or so, there is a worry that this will turn out to be a very grim and serious movie, but then you see that one of the villain's vehicles has six dudes with wardrums on the back, performing backup to the multi-storey-tall speaker system used by the guy whose entire duty is to play an epic heavy metal solo on a combination electric guitar/flamethrower, and you realise this is the closest we're going to get to River Tam Beats Up Everyone... but the fact that it's only close isn't a problem, because Fury Road manages to be even more awesome.
Despite an overwhelmingly awesome, diverse, amount of crazy stunts, the action is never difficult to follow, and almost everything is perfectly clear throughout. There is no distracting slow-motion, and it's almost all done with practical effects - the only CGI I noticed was for two short scenes that would have been logistically nigh impossible to do with props.
Seriously. Go see this now. It's outstanding.
If you like this, you might also like:
Film An Outstanding Day
As a disclaimer, I haven't seen the original trilogy, so I can't and won't be making comparisons between that and this (though I appreciated the Shout-Out to the iconic life-or-limb decision in the first film).
This movie is incredible, and undeniably so. When I saw it last night with a friend of mine, he told me that it had less dialogue than a SNES game, but you know what? That's fine, because the dialogue supplements the physical actions of the characters in such a way that we get lots of Character Development without tons of exposition.
The world-building in the opening scenes is fantastic, beautiful, and very-well done. In terms of visual effects, the film being mostly made with practical effects is greatly to its benefit - you feel like this could actually be a real-world post-apocalyptic scenario. Not to mention the raw hype of the stunts being pulled off, ranging from suicide dives with exploding spears to motorcyclists dropping grenades mid-jump to pendulum acrobats swooping in to grab people, ALL OF THEM REAL.
And the action...good god, the action. It was somehow the most over-the-top yet believable fight and battle sequences I've ever seen in a movie, feeling something like a combination between Serious Sam and Fallout 3. Everything was well-choreographed, and it was simply a joy to watch and experience.
Going back to the effects ever-so-briefly, a majority of them are practical, but there are a few instances of CGI - and all of them are done insanely well, the most memorable being a lightning storm in the middle of a desert that puts the wrath and power of Mother Nature on full display.
And yes, it is surprisingly feminist, but not feminazi - its message is that women are not above or below men, nor should they be made to be. Furiosa herself is a great protagonist.
In short, watch it, love it, then watch it again.
Film Don't listen to all that [redacted], the film is awesome.
Although once in a while it feels like there's too much talking (there is a handful of non-action scenes), by the end you're gonna squirt high-octane. In the family of car-related cinema, this is The Fast and the Furious edgy ex-convict big brother. Starring both' of everyone's favorite heroes of a post-nuclear wasteland — "Mad" Max Rockatansky and the Last of the V8 Interceptors — it pits the duo against a chrome paint-huffing, V8-worshipping, Valhalla-awaiting, motorized new era warrior death cult and its pus-ridden leader known under the deliciously megalomaniac name of Immortan Joe. And along the way, the big bad's right hand (ie. Charlize Theron) finds it the best time to drop the job... along with some of his most prized "property". Needless to say, when her plan goes off the rails, Max yet again finds himself helping people who at the moment need it the most.
Like I said, it has an occasional slow moment, and the old guard might complain about world-building details that deviate quite much from the original trilogy — but give it five minutes, and the complaints get drowned by the roar of engines, run over by the guitartruck, and then bombed by motocross samurai. (I guess I might have got carried away with that metaphor.)
Now, one more thing. You've probably heard of all that whining about how feminist it is or whatever. Screw that shit. [Redacted by moderator - SH]. It's kickass.