Rambling about #MadMaxFuryRoad

Mad Max: Fury Road is the fevered dream of a bunch of crazy people and it’s fucking glorious. And I’m gonna try to describe it with my limited processing capacity with words.

It is one of the few movies that have honest-to-god trailers and successfully delivers everything that is promised. It’s a movie that ruthlessly assaults your senses with over-the-top action fueled with diesel, adrenalin and animal-like ferocity. It’s a grandiose exhibition of diesel-punk vehicular warfare, and one of a kind in that regard. Yet, in all its ridiculous madness, it makes sense, like the logic of a nightmare — wicked, twisted, but when you’re on the inside, it makes sense. From the pesudo-Norse mythology to the perverse milk business of Immortan Joe, from the hedgehog-like chasers of the drifting wastelanders to the poll-swinging boarding vehicle of Joe’s War Boys, from the tredded muscle car of Bullet Farm to the Doofwagon blasting war songs from the horizon, with the guitarist dressed in red and a flame-throwing guitar dangling in the front. It all made perfect sense.

Oh, and the flamethrower-guitar-guy is awesome. If there’s one thing the movie did wrong, it’s the lack of screen time for him. And the Doofwagon! A military 8x8 truck that in reality would be carrying ICBM silos, except in the movie it is filled to the brim with a firework of amplifiers. And with a guitarist dressed in red holding a flame-throwing guitar dangling in the front, and four taikos in the back.

Whoever came up with this idea deserves a raise.

Well, enough about cars…how about the acting? Well, you can say that Max didn’t get enough screen time, but it’s alright: the character of Max is kinda like the “default” survivor of the wasteland — a man with nothing to lose other than his survival instinct. As opposed to Furiosa, the woman on the path of redemption with hope and responsibilities, Max is as much a character in the story as a beholder of the story. Besides, you’ll need a plot like that to give a man with nothing to lose a purpose to push the story forward.

On the other hand, the little bits of acting are done right, like the animalistic fight between Max and Furiosa, or the sad look on Furiosa’s face when she talks about redemption. They serve perfectly as the bridges between the high-octane car chases, and they’re so brilliantly done that, even if you mute all the dialogues, it will still make a story that makes perfect sense. Of course it is also because the simple plot, which only takes up about 20% of the movie.

All to make the other 80% absolutely awesome. Seriously, my brain is melting thinking of how awesome it is, and now I wanna watch it a second time. Maybe I should.