← Back to Reviews
in
Mad Max: Fury Road
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
A combination of having watched Locke, which is the only other Tom Hardy movie I've seen and the Oscars which I didn't vote for since I'd only seen Star Wars 7 and Mad Max this year. If I had voted for anything, it'd have been Mad Max though.
Feels like more than enough excuse to watch it again. Right?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Anytime I describe this movie to someone with the phrase, "and they've got this one truck dedicated to war drums and one guy with a double-necked flamethrower electric guitar to provide backing music" and the person I'm talking to responds with anything other than, "that's ****ing awesome" you're clearly not an action movie person.
What else can I say, really? This is the only movie I've seen since Inception which sold me on the trailer AND lived up to it.
I'm not a car person. I literally have never driven a car in my entire life and desert settings put me off a lot of movies, but THIS... THIS WAS AWESOME.
Sure I can poke holes in it left and right. You can hardly call it "Mad Max" for one. It's not really about Max since Furiosa's character is front and center most of the time and you can hardly call him "Mad" without the completely useless hallucinations he has about characters we never explore and backstory that never factors into the plot.
This isn't Tom Hardy's movie, let's be honest. Locke was Tom Hardy's movie, this was Charlize Theron's movie and for once we get a pretty badass female protagonist rockin' it out.
She even delivers the killing blow to the bad guy which is just as, "OOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!" as it needs to be.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Action / English / 2015
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
A combination of having watched Locke, which is the only other Tom Hardy movie I've seen and the Oscars which I didn't vote for since I'd only seen Star Wars 7 and Mad Max this year. If I had voted for anything, it'd have been Mad Max though.
Feels like more than enough excuse to watch it again. Right?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Anytime I describe this movie to someone with the phrase, "and they've got this one truck dedicated to war drums and one guy with a double-necked flamethrower electric guitar to provide backing music" and the person I'm talking to responds with anything other than, "that's ****ing awesome" you're clearly not an action movie person.
What else can I say, really? This is the only movie I've seen since Inception which sold me on the trailer AND lived up to it.
I'm not a car person. I literally have never driven a car in my entire life and desert settings put me off a lot of movies, but THIS... THIS WAS AWESOME.
Sure I can poke holes in it left and right. You can hardly call it "Mad Max" for one. It's not really about Max since Furiosa's character is front and center most of the time and you can hardly call him "Mad" without the completely useless hallucinations he has about characters we never explore and backstory that never factors into the plot.
This isn't Tom Hardy's movie, let's be honest. Locke was Tom Hardy's movie, this was Charlize Theron's movie and for once we get a pretty badass female protagonist rockin' it out.
She even delivers the killing blow to the bad guy which is just as, "OOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!" as it needs to be.
Immortan Joe isn't quite as hateable as other lower-key villains since most of his villainy is just extremely chauvinistic shock material. The "breeder wives" and tanks of breast milk honestly just gross me out and I'm glad the story never turned into a "war against men" even though it would have been extremely easy with a couple bad lines of dialog.
Instead we get about 3 to 4 outstanding male characters and nearly twice as many female characters with all of them cooly slipping into the logic of the world with their resourcefulness and mechanical improvisation.
The improvisation is huge point in favor of this movie since everything we see looks like it's been cobbled together from scrap or designed to fulfill unconventional functions out of practicality from the warboys with traffic signs for literal shields to the War Rig dropping it's plow to dreg up sand to put out the fire on it's engine, it all clicks.
The CG is really sneaky in this movie too. Plainly a lot of practical effects went into this movie which goes a long way to selling the action, but it's so prevalent that CG ranges from nearly impossible to notice to very obvious.
The really obvious CG is generally brief though and some of the best CG you need to take double takes to notice like- wait a second, Charlize Theron's missing an arm!
Instead we get about 3 to 4 outstanding male characters and nearly twice as many female characters with all of them cooly slipping into the logic of the world with their resourcefulness and mechanical improvisation.
The improvisation is huge point in favor of this movie since everything we see looks like it's been cobbled together from scrap or designed to fulfill unconventional functions out of practicality from the warboys with traffic signs for literal shields to the War Rig dropping it's plow to dreg up sand to put out the fire on it's engine, it all clicks.
The CG is really sneaky in this movie too. Plainly a lot of practical effects went into this movie which goes a long way to selling the action, but it's so prevalent that CG ranges from nearly impossible to notice to very obvious.
The really obvious CG is generally brief though and some of the best CG you need to take double takes to notice like- wait a second, Charlize Theron's missing an arm!
My biggest complaints would easily have to be the needless grossout moments of both Max and Nux eating CG critters. No thank you to that.
Still, they account for less than 60 seconds of this two hour hype train of a movie, so I can barely make a fuss about it.
All told, Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the greatest action movies I've ever seen. It's like if The Road Warrior and Speed had a baby. And it was perfect. Perfect in every way.
REWATCH UPDATE:
It's fairly evident on a rewatch that beyond the intentional silliness, there's a fair amount of unintentional silliness besides, stuff that really doesn't help the movie.
A couple action moments blow by so fast that I honestly didn't even grasp what happened, but at worst, reminded me of Sex and Fury 2.
There's this brief area of the movie right around the build to the climax when Mad Max has his premonition about getting shot in the face by the Masked Man where everything kinda slughs apart. Why does that even happen? That part of the movie could have been removed entirely and it would have made more sense. He sees danger, has a momentary flashback, shields his face, survives a crossbow bolt.
That's all well and good without the completely unnecessary foresight scene.
This Masked Man is also the one who manages to stab Furiosa with the gear shift dagger... which she throws, one-handed, over her shoulder, while she's driving, and kills a guy. What the ****!? You want something like that out of Stallone or Schwarzenegger you at least need a few feet of clearance to windup first!
Now, I'd be willing to forgive that as a moment of adrenalized badassery, if it weren't shortly followed by the Masked Man picking up the dagger and stabbing Furiosa with it, only to be defeated by Dying Grandma STABBING HIM IN THE FACE WITH BULLETS.
I dunno, it's weird. Still think the movie's ace though.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome]
Still, they account for less than 60 seconds of this two hour hype train of a movie, so I can barely make a fuss about it.
All told, Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the greatest action movies I've ever seen. It's like if The Road Warrior and Speed had a baby. And it was perfect. Perfect in every way.
REWATCH UPDATE:
It's fairly evident on a rewatch that beyond the intentional silliness, there's a fair amount of unintentional silliness besides, stuff that really doesn't help the movie.
A couple action moments blow by so fast that I honestly didn't even grasp what happened, but at worst, reminded me of Sex and Fury 2.
There's this brief area of the movie right around the build to the climax when Mad Max has his premonition about getting shot in the face by the Masked Man where everything kinda slughs apart. Why does that even happen? That part of the movie could have been removed entirely and it would have made more sense. He sees danger, has a momentary flashback, shields his face, survives a crossbow bolt.
That's all well and good without the completely unnecessary foresight scene.
This Masked Man is also the one who manages to stab Furiosa with the gear shift dagger... which she throws, one-handed, over her shoulder, while she's driving, and kills a guy. What the ****!? You want something like that out of Stallone or Schwarzenegger you at least need a few feet of clearance to windup first!
Now, I'd be willing to forgive that as a moment of adrenalized badassery, if it weren't shortly followed by the Masked Man picking up the dagger and stabbing Furiosa with it, only to be defeated by Dying Grandma STABBING HIM IN THE FACE WITH BULLETS.
YOU CAN'T DO THAT. YOU CAN'T DEFEND YOURSELF WITH A HANDFUL OF BULLETS, THEY'RE ROUND CYLINDERS OF METAL, NOT CALTROPS.
It'dve been more realistic if you full-on poked the guy in the eyes with your fingers instead of trying to mash the equivalent of marbles in his face.
It's a shame too because this whole mess happens right around when Furiosa gets stabbed which I think is the best part of the movie, and now I'm suddenly distracted by the thought of, "Who the **** is this masked guy who's suddenly the most dangerous character in the movie and his mere presence warps the laws of physics?"
It'dve been more realistic if you full-on poked the guy in the eyes with your fingers instead of trying to mash the equivalent of marbles in his face.
It's a shame too because this whole mess happens right around when Furiosa gets stabbed which I think is the best part of the movie, and now I'm suddenly distracted by the thought of, "Who the **** is this masked guy who's suddenly the most dangerous character in the movie and his mere presence warps the laws of physics?"
I dunno, it's weird. Still think the movie's ace though.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome]