Movie Review: Mad Max Fury Road
Rating: 4 Stars
Some ten minutes into Mad Max: Fury Road I was thinking to myself, “This is what all these new Fast and Furious movies want to be.”
Now I’m a hypocrite, the only Fast and Furious installment I can guarantee I’ve seen from start to finish is The Fast and the Furious which had a premise I could enjoy. There were cars that drove fast, and people that were furious, but also a coherent story that wasn’t so much larger than life. Since then I’ve watched clips from the subsequent films and my stubborn self cannot suspend my disbelief for a newer Fast and Furious film no matter how many people tell me how good it is.
It’s not about believability, I don’t have to believe in a stunt to enjoy it. But some movies own the “action” scene with apparent poise and confidence. And that’s where I can’t help but admonish Mad Max: Fury Road and George Miller’s newest directorial masterpiece.
So where do you remember George Miller from? Well, he directed the first Mad Max with Melly Gibson as Keegan-Michael Key would say. He also directed Happy Feet. The contrasts are not that stark.
A man or digital penguin fighting against tyrannical powers that are a gazillion times more powerful than them, in epic wasteland survival scenarios.
Okay, so maybe it’s a stretch, but George Miller is not opposed to sequels, because this is the fourth Mad Max film, look out Jason Bourne.
So what actually makes Mad Max: Fury Road a must-see and why it battled The Revenant out of so many Oscars? (More on that later)
First, Tom Hardy is establishing himself as not only a great bad-ass character actor, but a great actor in general. The common denominator in Max and Revenant, is Tom Hardy wreaking havoc. Possibly the most undersold value of Mad Max is Tom Hardy’s performance as Max Rockatansky. (Say that name five times fast).
His performance is undersold because he’s constantly being outshined by visual effects, cinematography of the highest degree, and a world that’s very existence is so believable you’d think this was the state of Australia today.
The key is confidence. There’s so much confidence in the script, and the lexicon that transmits through the film that there’s a world that’s built in front of you.
The plot: Max (Tom Hardy) is a human “drifter” haunted by his past failures. He runs into a runaway mostly-healthy female aptly named Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who is attempting to free captured breeders of the dictatorial Immortan Joe.
The film never tells you what exactly is haunting Max (thought it shows demonic quick-cut flashbacks), and leaves the rest up for imagination. Furiosa, meanwhile, is lightly developed. She’s searching for the home she was taken from, whilst saving the captured girls that are being bred to make healthy children.
There are three important resources in the Wasteland: guzzoline, bullets, and water. All play their role.
My other thought while watching Fury Road was that there’s a comparable feeling to getting enveloped in the universe that’s been created, much in the same way epic fantasies like “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” have developed worlds of their own. Mad Max: Fury Road is a near equivalent, but on the action spectrum. There’s no science to Mad Max to make it science fiction, but there’s no dragons and wizardry to make you say, this is a fantasy feature. Mad Max: Fury Road knows exactly what it is and it won’t let you say otherwise. And that’s genius storytelling and directing in my book.
And no one will tell me otherwise that the guitar player and the guitar fight scene isn’t pure entertainment, while being an incredible use of a background soundtrack. Also I would vouch for Dave Bautista having a role as the heavy-hitting personal bodyguard.
For the innate level of confidence applied to Mad Max: Fury Road, I am on the bandwagon to say this is a film worth celebrating as an excellent action-adventure movie.
Which brings me to my post-review Revenant versus Mad Max/Apples and Oranges are not grown on the same tree. And my disclaimer: I think the Oscars are dumb in concept, but so much fun to debate because they lead to these discussions.
And this debate about Mad Max and The Revenant is another reason why the Oscars are so jaded. Now Mad Max: Fury Road won six Oscars: film editing, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, sound mixing, sound editing, and production design. Also nominated for: visual effects, cinematography, directing, and best picture.
The Revenant was also nominated in many of those same categories: sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects, production design, costume design, and so on.
You can’t tell me if you go watch both of those movies within a few months of each other and tell me that the amount of detail and precision in each film was not executed to the point where each movie could deserve the nod.
What The Revenant achieved in its sound editing, production design, film editing, was absolutely remarkable for the film The Revenant was portraying. Mad Max: Fury Road, absolutely remarkable in all the same categories, but a completely different style of film.
My assessment: Screw the Oscars, go see Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant if you haven’t already, they’re incredible in just about every category.
Sidebar: I really need to get back to finding a terrible piece of cinema a la Michael Bay’s TMNT.
