Anyway, how much of a backstory do we really need? Fury Road spells out what we need to know: Max's family is dead and he feels like he failed them. As a result, he's isolated himself from other people and now his only urge is to survive.
I was referring more to the visual style and narration of the intro rather than the absence of a protracted and unnecessary recap. Miller could have had a gravelly narrator say something a bit more poetic about the rise of Immortan Joe, the increased depravity of the wasteland and Max's further mental decline. Instead the
Fury Road prologue comes off like a second rate video game complete with a silhouetted Max treading on a two headed lizard and biting it's head off. Talk about hackneyed. I was half expecting Alice Cooper to pop up in front of camera doing jazz hands.
And I don't see this Max as being dehumanized at all. Hardy's Max is certainly more solemn and his actions and emotions more subtle than the cocky Gibson, but his humanity seeps out all over the place
I don't want to get into semantics here, but I see gradations of dehumanisation in the character over the course of the series. We all know that Max is inherently a good person otherwise we wouldn't care. Gibson's actions as Max are arguably less human in the
The Road Warrior - until the Gyro Captain saves his life and he comes to the realisation that the petrol refiners are people he needs to help (arguable in itself seeing as Max really has no choice) - but Gibson acts the part with a subtle hint of swagger that compensates for much of the character's coldness.
With his shotgun in the Gyro Captain's face
Max:
The deal was I wouldn't kill you...I think you got a bargain Miller also directs with a more personal touch, and gives us well drawn support characters to counteract and question Max's emotional detachment. Sometimes through quirky eccentricity leading to comedy, but also more challenging dialogue...
Pappagallo:
What is it with you, huh? What are you looking for? C'mon, Max, everybody's looking for something. You're happy out there, are you? Eh? Wandering? One day blurring into another? You're a scavenger, Max. You're a maggot. Did you know that? You're living off the corpse of the old world. Tell me your story, Max. C'mon. Tell me your story. What burned you out, huh? Kill one man too many? See too many people die? Lose some family? Fury Road has nothing like that. No-one to grab Hardy by the lapels and shake him up. He's got nothing to do. There's no-one to beat Max's face to a pulp (something that would happen in a Clint Eastwood flick as JD alluded to) and get under the skin of the character. Hardy is simply lost in the spectacle. It's all mouth and no trousers because the players are so one dimensional, and the story
even more basic than the originals which have far more depth.
No, Hardy's Max isn't completely dehumanised through his actions, but he comes across a lot more distant, and doesn't have the same type of charisma Gibson's does. Whilst his behavior verges on noble (again out of necessity rather than choice) mere facial expressions are not enough to compensate for everything else that's missing - especially when the actor looks dazed and out of his depth. This is why
Fury Road lacks the impact of the first two films, because Miller and co are too busy paying fan service with large action sequences. They forgot to give us some emotional investment with a better script, and that for me is the difference between an OK action film, and a
great action film. It's certainly a poor way to introduce a new actor to an iconic character.
I was also hugely disappointed by the further loss of the Australian identity (which began with the casting of Tina Turner in
Thunderdome). Miller says he never really saw the films as Australian, which feels like a total cop-out to me. Surely
Mad Max is quintessentially Australian - it was certainly one of the first Aussie films I saw in my youth. Miller's comments strike me as unbelievable PR because of the new shooting location and larger international cast - who by acting standards should have employed Australian accents. I'm aware many Americans only saw the original
Mad Max in the wake of
The Road Warrior, and that initial version was re-dubbed with American voice actors for fear people wouldn't understand Australian. YUCK. I really hope US fans don't still watch that version and revert to the Australian audio track instead. I remember buying the Warner VHS and taking it back because of the American voices. Thank god the BBC used to screen the film 'in Australian'.
I know we could all go on and dispute the merits of
Fury Road until the end of time with individual opinions unlikely to change. I don't hate the movie which I will watch again, and no doubt purchase on blu ray. I'm genuinely glad it's done well and further installments are on the horizon. I know Hardy can grow into the role, and want him to succeed even though I'm not overjoyed with the direction this new film has taken. No doubt there will be comebacks to this post, and that's fine, but I'm pretty much done on the subject to be honest.
...
JayDee and Used Future are being seen as heroes for speaking negatively about Mad Max: Fury Road WHEN I DID IT FIRST!
By whom and where? I don't feel much love on these boards.
Sexy Celebrity you are indeed the trailblazer of all things seminal. Though I did make the the following post in the
Rate the last movie you saw thread around the same time (not sure on the exact dates) that you started world war three in the
Fury Road thread - which I deliberately avoided.
This is going to be unpopular, but I need to rant...
Mad Max: Fury Road I love
Mad Max and enjoyed this as a mindless action spectacle, but it's definitely the most overrated movie of the year so far, and doesn't begin to touch the first two films (which were far from mindless and
not gratuitously violent as some have stated elsewhere). The script here is practically non existent. It's like Miller sat there with the suits and they said, Hey George! People love that tanker chase in
The Road Warrior so lets make the
whole movie like that. Forget about the personal touch the original films had, just throw an endless series of stunts and twisted metal at the screen and people will flock to see it. I find it hard to believe there wasn't major studio tampering with such a big budget on the table. Let's throw in a logic defying faux-twist to ensure the protagonists meet head on again for yet another mind numbing chase sequence. Is this really the best script Miller and co could source after a thirty year hiatus from Max? I doubt it.
There's virtually no character development (save for Nux who has the only thing resembling a redemptive arc) and thus I experienced no sense of excitement or tension because I didn't care about any of said characters. Tom Hardy is so vacant and lacking in charisma as Max; he looks like a startled rabbit caught in the proverbial headlights - what a shame they couldn't take a leap of faith and stick with Mel Gibson who was still only mid fifties when they shot this. Theron is great in a Ripley-esque kind of way and the (hardly original) feminist undertones are fitting considering the origins of the genre, but why the hell is she talking with an American accent? Surely an actress of her caliber could have given it some ocker passion. I know it wasn't shot in Oz, but a huge part of
Mad Max for me is the Australian identity and this incarnation seems to toss much of that aside. It just doesn't have that strange, crow cawing atmosphere the first films had and as such merely
looks like the world of Max on steroids.
Thankfully those looks are fantastically realised and repetitive as they may be, the action scenes are impeccably staged with a minimum of CGI tampering (save for that horrible dust storm sequence, and understandably Immortan Joe's impressive looking citadel) The costume and vehicle designs hold an admirable level of steam punk detail that would make Terry Gilliam proud, and for brief stretches I almost forgot about the complete lack of soul the movie has. Despite this it's highly watchable on the level of Costner's
Waterword (odd to think that very similar Max inspired movie got luke warm notices whilst this has received raves) and perhaps more importantly seems to have successfully rebooted (though it isn't one) the
Mad Max franchise. I just hope Miller has the moxy to re-cast Gibbo (or anyone but Hardy) in a more personal and restrained sequel. Wishful thinking perhaps, but I sincerely believe that less is more, George...less is more.