"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Mad Max: Fury Road

tn_furyroadSPOILER WARNING. I mean, I can’t stop you from reading this, but I’m not being careful about spoilers because for crying out loud see this movie IMMEDIATELY. Quit your job if necessary.

Usually if you’re still watching a movie for the first time, it’s kinda premature to start thinking “this is a masterpiece.” Not so with MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. It’s part 4 in an old series, but it truly feels like an entirely new type of movie. It is thrilling, explosive, inventive action at its most pure and relentless, yet it manages to weave a moving and powerful story around and within and through the hundreds of spectacular stunts. As he has in each successive MAD MAX movie, director George Miller re-invents his post-poxyclipstic world with even more ornate detail and flair than before, unfolding a fantasy world as teeming with weird characters and happenings as the whole HOBBIT trilogy without ever dumping a bunch of exposition on us. He explains what we need to know economically, mostly visually, and leaves the rest for us to daydream about.

This is a movie that will transform people’s brains. It just might be the most elaborate action movie ever made, both in the complexity of the stunt sequences and in the meticulous design of the people and things in it. Now the cars aren’t just cool and beat up, they’re built from unlikely combinations of multiple vehicles piled on top of each other, covered in spikes, flame throwers, animal skulls and creepy doll heads, with weapons hidden inside and out and half naked goons climbing all over them firing guns and throwing spears and bombs. Steering wheels are removable, heavily decorated and carry some sort of religious significance. One character pulls his off and holds it aloft during a chase to show that he’s ready to die.

mp_furyroadFURY ROAD does for vehicle action what HARD BOILED did for gunfights. It has an action to non-action ratio comparable to THE RAID, and even some of the quiet dialogue scenes take place inside a truck involved in a high speed chase and battle. But even without that I’d love staring at this world of asymmetrical leather jackets, weird masks, goggles, binoculars, telescopes, facepaint, chains, clothing made of bullets, exploding lances. It has a STAR WARS level of factions, weapons, vehicles and terminology. It’s the highway action of THE ROAD WARRIOR multiplied by the detail of the Barter Town scenes of THUNDERDOME, stacked with a Cirque Du Soleil show and a jigger of 300-style macho barbarianism, wrapped in a Hieronymous Bosch painting. It’s probly the closest thing we’ll ever have to a Jodorowsky comic book put on film. It’s too good to be true, but it is.

Of course it’s a different actor playing Max now, it’s Tom Hardy. And it’s funny, because before we even get a clear look at this new Max’s face his Interceptor gets flipped, he’s abducted, branded, caged and hung upside down, literally used as a bloodbag for Nux (Nicholas Hoult, CLASH OF THE TITANS remake), a bald, disease-ridden “Warboy” brainwashed to fight and die for the cruel leader Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the villain Toecutter in MAD MAX). Max spends the epic first act chase scene mounted to the hood of Nux’s vehicle with an I.V. pumping his blood in. Just as he used to scour the desert looking for gas to steal, these guys look for people to use for blood. Their boss uses beautiful women as sex slave “breeders”, others for milk (not for the babies!), and has a water pump which he occasionally uses to spray water off the mountain so all the poor, downtrodden and misshapen come begging with empty buckets and trays. This world is all about sticking tubes into things and sucking out precious fluids.

Or the reverse, come to think of it. There’s a great scene where Max and Nux hang on the front of a truck spitting gasoline (or something) into the blower.

While Max is being used as human medical equipment, a new character earns her cinematic icon status. She is Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron, YOUNG ADULT), a robot-armed badass and lieutenant of Immortan Joe driving a huge “war rig” truck on a supply run for gas and bullets. But the tyrant’s trust is misplaced. Today Furiosa has hidden Joe’s five indentured wives (one of them very pregnant) in the truck and is going to take a left turn and try to make a run for freedom. As with the settlers in the refinery in part 2 and the lost kids in part 3, Max gets in the middle of it but gruffly refuses to help until his essential goodness gets the better of him and he goes into action.

That involves several chases that are bigger and more jawdropping than the classic climactic truck chase in THE ROAD WARRIOR. I don’t think I could choose a favorite. One contender is the one where dudes on motorcycles are jumping over the truck dropping grenades, and Furiosa is shooting them in mid-air and dodging their tumbling bikes. But what about the one with dudes swinging from 25 foot bendy-poles and stabbing at them with chainsaws? Many (including a nerd talking way too loud during the end credits) have praised it for its “practical effects, not CGI” (read in Toby from AMERICAN SPLENDOR voice). I feel like there’s gotta be more digital enhancement than they’re letting on (supposedly they mostly just erased safety rigs), but even if it was 100% animation it would be impressive to me. And until I read about it I didn’t even think about all the impossible camera moves, swooping around the action on a sophisticated crane attached to yet another vehicle driving in the middle of all this mayhem. How the hell did they do all this and keep it comprehensible?

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The only thing I don’t like about this movie is the thought that kids who grow up on it will think THE ROAD WARRIOR is boring.

Richard Norton, twelve-time Cynthia Rothrock co-star, plays an Imperator in there somewhere and was fight coordinator. There’s actually a bunch of hand-to-hand fighting, including an excellent knock-down-drag-out between Max and Furiosa when they first meet. She has one arm but he’s chained to an unconscious guy, so it’s a good match up. But Max’s greatest fight happens off screen, when he wanders into the fog and comes back covered in blood carrying a steering wheel, a boot and a ridiculous amount of weapons. It would be funny if somebody was disappointed by that gag, as if there wasn’t enough action in the movie already.

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I bet it’ll be a while before I get in another argument about whether or not George Miller still knows how to shoot action.

Technical note: Miller wanted to shoot this in 3D, but the special cameras he had made ended up not working out, and he had to post-convert it like every other chump. I’m usually not a fan of that process, but I think they did a good job on this one. Although I haven’t seen the 2D yet to compare, I think the stereoscopics really bring the viewer into this world and make the spatial relationships in the chases even more clear. At one point a grenade was tossed and it made me flinch. And there’s one particular moneyshot (you probly know the one) where I will definitely miss that third dimension when I’m watching it on flat blu-ray. If you’re not into 3D it’s not necessary but if you like it sometimes I say this is a good one.

In the great MAD MAX tradition, this will leave viewers wondering about alot of things by not seeming to follow continuity. In guilty hallucinations and nightmares Max seems to have had a daughter that died. Is this in place of his son Sprog from part 1? Did he have another kid since the poxyclipse? Or adopt one of those plane crash survivors that didn’t need another hero? We don’t know. In narration he says that he was a cop, so I like to assume that this is the same Max Rockatansky of the previous movies, who was around before “all this,” as Aunty Entity once called it. But in the timeline of this movie that seems impossible, because Furiosa expects the place of her birth and childhood to still be there, signaling that she was born after the shit hit the fan. That would mean she’d have to be twenty-some years younger than Max, but she sure doesn’t look it (Theron is two years older than Hardy). Also, Immortan Joe’s gigantic son Rictus Erectus is surely a child of the poxyclipse, and he’s played by Nathan Jones (TOM YUM GOONG, FEARLESS, MUAY THAI GIANT), who is 7 years older than Hardy. But I guess his beastly manchild could just age fast.

None of this matters. Awesome trumps sensible. It did make me think about how this movie would be with grey-haired, disavowed Mel Gibson returning as Max. But Hardy is great. To me he actually looked a little like Gibson at times, especially with the muzzle on, but he doesn’t do an imitation, or even an Australian accent. He puts his own spin on it. He gets to be weird, grunty Tom Hardy at times, it’s not one of those blockbuster roles where the actor suppresses what it was that made you like him in the first place.

And honestly Theron is as much the star as he is. It’s a great performance from the nervous but resolute look on her face as she starts her supply run pretending like everything is normal, to the Max-like ruthlessness when she tells the wives “Everything hurts out here!”, to the way she acts to the crushing revelation of what happened to her home, and that’s just a bonus on top of all the badass shit she does. Theron has been great in alot of movies, but she hasn’t had too many full-on action star roles. This one fulfills the promise she showed in AEON FLUX, which was not a particularly good movie but she gave a very dedicated physical performance.

If there’s one thing this movie is missing – and there isn’t – it’s a pet for Max. In ROAD WARRIOR he had Dog. In Thunderdome he had a monkey. Here he could potentially have a two-headed lizard as a friend, but instead he eats it alive. Times are tough. He’s so isolated he forgot how to talk, and he keeps dreaming and hallucinating the people he left behind.

Of course in a movie so jam-packed with everything good, you’re gonna have alot of Miller’s favorite themes and motifs and shit. One that I really enjoyed: music. I recently pointed out how both Max’s wife in MAD MAX and one of Aunty Entity’s people in THUNDERDOME play saxophone that acts as live scoring to the movie. HAPPY FEET TWO features a scene with a human playing electric guitar on a boat and watching a penguin play air guitar to it. And now one of the war parties in FURY ROAD includes a vehicle with a wall of amplifiers and a masked electric guitarist (some Australian musician named iOTA), plus a band of drummers, who score the battle as they take part in it, and serve as a rumbling warning when they’re headed this way. Also The Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter, THE HOWLING III) blares opera music and declares himself “The Orchestrator of Death” as he blindly waves and fires his machine guns.

You also have Miller’s love of goofy character names (Toast the Knowing, The People Eater, The Dag), pocksycliptic language (they call it “guzzoline” now instead of “the juice”), crazy ranting and speechifying, and Max getting things stolen from him (his Interceptor, his jacket, his blood). Like in THUNDERDOME he loses his car in the opening scene and leaves the movie a pedestrian.

In fact there are are plenty of things that could be considered references to the other installments, for example when Max starts trying to chew Nux’s arm off to get it out of a handcuff it’s a nod to what he told the guy in the first one when he cuffed him to an about-to-explode-car. But I like that these things are never underlined in dialogue. When Furiosa realizes he’s been threatening her with a gun that doesn’t work she could say “Dishonest!” like the gyro pilot did in THE ROAD WARRIOR. But Miller knows that kinda shit is corny.

The lead villain Immortan Joe is like The Humungus if he graduated from gang/cult leader to pharaoh. He stands atop his mountain fortress The Citadel overlooking thousands and speaks to them as their god. Then later he gets in a monster truck/hot rod hybrid and goes to battle. At least he’s willing to get his hands dirty.

But these are little things. A more substantial Miller motif is that of forgiveness. In THE ROAD WARRIOR he feuds with the gyro pilot for most of the movie but they’re friends at the end. In THUNDERDOME he saves Master and lets him join them on their escape, despite what he’s done. And remember that scene in BABE: PIG IN THE CITY where the pitbull is trying to attack Babe, but he falls off the bridge and is nearly strangled by his leash? Babe saves his life, and the pitbull becomes fanatically devoted to him. I believe a similar selfless act happens in HAPPY FEET TWO when a bullying sea lion (or something) falls off a cliff.

In FURY ROAD the wives take pity on Nux even as he’s attacking them, and stop Furiosa from killing him. Good thing they do, because he eventually decides to help them, and saves their lives twice. Also, Max is playing ruthless nomad, he hijacks Furiosa and the wives at gunpoint and fights Furiosa, but they later forgive him.

This is their way, but it’s not the way of the Citadel. One of the wives tries to give up and go back to Immortan Joe, saying “He’ll forgive us!” Because that’s what they’d do, they’d forgive somebody. But the others know better than to expect that from Joe, and indeed the next time he sees one of them he puts a gun to their head.

The wives are prized for their priceless beauty and health. They live in a suite inside a vault, forced to wear chastity belts decorated with vagina dentata and the Immortan Joe flaming skull steering wheel logo. The staple-faced Warboy Slit (Josh Helman, ANIMAL KINGDOM, JACK REACHER) refers to the wives as “Immortan Joe’s stuff” that was stolen. Joe refers to them as “my treasures” and to one’s unborn son as “my property.” So they keep repeating the mantra “We are not things.” Like an ex-con they’d rather die than go back.

They look like super models and you can immediately imagine what kind of vacant placeholder characters they could be. I admit I can’t keep all their names straight (favorite name: The Splendid Angharad, played by Rosie-Huntington-Whiteley) but they’re all likable and capable, each getting chances to take the wheel, climb down the truck and repair something, talk shit to an enemy’s face or help a poor Warboy find redemption. And they support and encourage each other.

megangaleThen they meet Furiosa’s people, The Vuvalini, a band of weather-worn, grandma-aged warriors. They can shoot and drive motorcycles and one (Melissa Jaffer) brags about the headshots she’s provided for everyone she ever met in the desert. Their only non-grey-haired member “The Valkyrie” is played by Megan Gale, the model who Miller had set to play Wonder Woman when he was supposed to do a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie, and she makes a strong case for how perfect she would’ve been. These old ladies kick ass, and it’s never played for quirkiness or laughs. It’s just how it is out here. Warrior Woman and Auntie Entity aren’t the only strong women in the wasteland. I guess the strong are the only ones left.

So we have a great female badass as the actual main character, and a dozen or more excellent supporting ladies, with only two men on the good side and not a single woman on the other. And their goal is to escape from the clutches of a vile sex slaver, reclaim their bodies, their reproductive freedom, their lives. The potent pro-woman themes are a rare treat, but they’re not the only righteous subtext.

While Barter Town was run by gangsters, the Citadel is run by a tyrant. He lives in cartoonish, mother’s-milk-drinking decadence while the masses suffer, and he uses religious zealotry to brainwash his victims into fighting endless wars. Immortan Joe, I am convinced, is the best MAD MAX villain yet. When we first meet him he’s a pathetic, wheezing old man, his back covered in enormous, cancerous sores. Then he squeezes into his fake plastic muscles (decorated in mlitary medals) and his horse-skull gas mask, stands on the mountain and makes a vainglorious speech. He enslaves children as cannon fodder and wheel-turners, and we see him personally fueling their zeal to die in battle, filling their heads with Valhalla and reincarnation, everything but the 72 virgins. They have a ritual of spraypainting their mouths silver before death, turning their teeth into chrome grills. You just know he made up that shit.

Since he controls the water (or Aqua Cola, he calls it) he controls them. But when his time comes the people go full on “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead” or Brad Wesley “I didn’t see anything.” The people of Barter Town were prone to mindlessly chanting bloodthirsty slogans like “Two men enter, one man leave!” and “Bust a deal and face the wheel!,” which I always found depressingly accurate. So it’s nice to see these crowds welcoming the revolution and chanting “Let them up!”

Whatever happens after the credits roll, we see a society working in microcosm in the cab of that war rig. A crazy ex-road warrior, a rogue Imperator, a bunch of escaped wives, a lapsed Warboy and some old ladies, all working together to solve problems. When the precious steering wheel gets yanked away it doesn’t matter, Furiosa clamps a wrench on the steering column, then straps some other things to it, and they never lose control. They don’t need that organized religion, they can find their own way. And they carry with them a bag of heirloom seeds which they don’t really treat as precious cargo, but it represents something none of them have probly had for a long time: hope for a better world.

Man, this guy is really riding my ass. What the hell is this guy's-- OH SHIT! IT'S IMMORTAN JOE!
Man, this guy is really riding my ass. What the hell is this guy’s– OH SHIT!

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These days I rarely see a movie twice in the theater, if even on video. But I already watched FURY ROAD two days in a row, and loved every second of it. Just between you and me, I got teary-eyed during the credits the second time, just thinking about how good the thing is. Had to put the glasses back on. And I’ve spent hours talking and wondering about the little details in the movie. Does the skeleton arm stencil on the side of the war rig mean Furiosa lost her arm while it was hanging out the window, or is it just a badass decoration? What does it mean that she hisses “Remember me?” before killing Immortan Joe? Were the War Pups really gonna tear that little telescope hogging guy (apparently called Corpus Colossus, played by Quentin Kenihan) apart when they looked over at him and he was like “gulp, oh shit“? What all did they brand on Max’s back (I caught his blood type, something about being a road warrior and “genitals intact.”) What specifically made him switch from survival mode to wanting to help Furiosa?

You know who’s one of a thousand great minor MAD MAX characters? The one credited as “Organic Mechanic” (Angus Sampson from the Fargo tv show and the INSIDIOUS movies). That’s the guy who cuts the baby out of dead Splendid, finds out the baby is dead too, but not deformed, and admires a piece of the umbilical cord. He smiles as he talks about what a shame it is, like he’s talking about a scratched paint job or something. And he seems to feel a little honored to be able to tell Rictus that it was a boy. Then Rictus yells “I had a baby brother! And he was perfect in every way!” Such a simple character, but definitely the best performance I’ve seen out of Jones. And the movie has dozens of characters with great little moments like that.

I guess that’s a George Miller thing. But I also suspect it comes from the way he planned this one, developing and storyboarding it with Judge Dredd comic artist Brendan McCarthy before even doing a script. It makes for an endless supply of colorful, visually compelling characters. And then they had more than a decade to give them all backstories.

There’s been talk of potential further Mad Max adventures. Hardy is signed on, if it does well enough, they already have a script for what was supposed to be a tie-in anime about where Furiosa came from, and either a completed script or a rough novel (depending on where you read it) called MAD MAX: THE WASTELAND. I’m no fool, I want all the George Miller movies I can get, but I don’t think we need to rush things. As frustrating as it was to wait this long for FURY ROAD, I have no doubt that the long journey contributed to its greatness, and that another one made under ordinary circumstances would have a hard time comparing.

In fact I like that this being MAD MAX forces me to abandon the usual franchise-fever that many (including me) have learned from modern blockbusters. I enjoy watching, say, a Marvel or Star Wars or especially Fast and Furious movie, and hoping that in a future movie we’ll see more of this character or they’ll explore more of that place or get into the backstory of such-and-such or this character will become a good guy or what have you. In the four MAD MAX movies, no character besides Max ever reappears. Not even locations, like Barter Town. Each time Miller builds a new world for Max to drift into. So as much as I love Furiosa, I would be disappointed if she showed up in a MAD MAX 5. It would be against the rules.

By all means have Theron playing a different character, though, as Bruce Spence and Hugh Keays-Byrne did.

I’m actually not worried about overhyping this one, because I feel like it can stand up to anything. If you love movies, and you don’t like FURY ROAD, I think you’ll at least be able to see why it’s so impressive and groundbreaking. To me there’s no question that this is a classic on the level of ALIENS and T2. I should probly have shaken the hand of the guy who showed up early for the first Thursday show with his two kids. Building a better future.

It’s 15 years Miller’s been trying to make this, and I’ve been waiting for it anxiously the whole time. I love the original trilogy and I think Miller’s run of kids movies were brilliant too, and they convinced me that he wouldn’t just rehash his old work in this part 4, he’d take it to another level. I always think about how after I had read about it for some years it was actually ready to start filming with Mel Gibson returning as Max. And the plug ended up getting pulled at the last minute because, if I remember right, a sudden change in currency exchange and security in the filming locations in Namibia made the budget skyrocket. The reason for that change? The start of the Iraq War. So that’s how long I’ve been excited for this movie. Since ODB was still alive and Usher had the #1 selling album and there was only one PUNISHER movie.

Those are the type of expectations no movie could live up to. Except MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Somehow it’s still better than I thought it would be.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2015 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Action, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

363 Responses to “Mad Max: Fury Road”

  1. The stunts and action was very impressive, and there were plenty of great memorable scenes, the vehicles were impressive, and it was exciting. However, I found Theron bland with no attempt whatsoever to connect to the audience(I’ve yet to see her in ANYTHING where I didn’t get the feeling she was just playing a role because she was paid to), and gives a performance that could be matched(or topped) by pretty much any other actress in Hollywood. Likewise, Tom Hardy has a LONG fucking way to go before he’s even a third as cool as Mel was(and being relegated to support character in his own movie, like Snipes in Blade 3, doesn’t help I suppose), and could have been played just as well by pretty much anybody.

  2. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the overwhelmingly positive critical response to this movie is in large part because MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is being viewed through the prism of MAD MAX: MEMORY LANE. It’s as though all better elements of the first three movies are being read into this one, whether earned or unearned, and what we’re left with is MAD MAX: THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES.

    Don’t get me wrong; I very much like all three previous Mad Max movies, and damn skippy I was there for the first showing of this one last Thursday night. I wanted to like this, but something about it felt inert. It lived, it breathed, it had all the car chases and action set pieces we’ve come to associate with a MM movie… but it had no personality whatsoever. The passion was gone.

    Added to which, after the less than merry band of travelers arrive at what I immediately mentally termed the Lesbian Desert Encampment, they are thusly informed about their quest for The Green Place: “No, no… you guys just *came* from there. You gots to turn around and go back” (something to that effect). Are you fucking kidding me? All those years to come up with at least a half-decent plot, and that’s how it segues into the third act? To quote James Coburn: “That’s just *mean*, man!”.

  3. Vern, does this not qualify as The Best Damn Thing You’ve Seen Lately?

  4. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is the pod person version of a Mad Max movie.

    Booyah! I should’ve written just that in the first place, and skipped all the rest. Carry on.

  5. You guys are nuts. Theron is magnificent here, and I don’t even hold the original trilogy in much reverence, but I ADORED this movie. Emperor’s New Clothes? Inert? No personality? What movie did you watch? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a movie with as much personality. This thing is ALL personality.

  6. KaeptnKrautsalat

    May 17th, 2015 at 1:18 am

    Amazing film, I’ve also watched it twice already. I loved how many of the weird little details got a cool payoff later on, like the chain, the car door and the iv tube. Was anybody able to spot Richard Norton in the film?

  7. “They have a ritual of spraypainting their mouths silver before death, turning their teeth into chrome grills. You just know he made up that shit.”

    Huffing spray paint (and driving fast) is a big problem in remote Australian indigenous communities. But Mad Max made me want to start.

    I didn’t grow up on Mad Max. I saw them, but I grew up on the videogames inspired by it – fallout, borderlands, RAGE. Fury Road blew me away. I’ve never seen anything as cool.

  8. The Undefeated Gaul

    May 17th, 2015 at 2:23 am

    Saw this last night and while I loved it, I think the 3D harmed the experience a lot. All the trailers looked so gorgeous, the colors so vibrant, but in the theater there was the old grey haze you get from having on the 3D glasses. I think I can only judge this one properly once I see it in crisp HD on blu.

    Also, people saying Theron isn’t good in this are flatout insane. I can maybe see why you wouldn’t like Hardy because he plays it pretty understated, like an actually crazy person who has started speaking again for the first time in years. I assume that’s the way the part was written though and I can’t imagine many other actors but Hardy conveying that stuff so brilliantly.

    Lastly, I was disappointed by the gag where he comes back bloody and we never see what he did. Obviously there is a crazy amount of action in the film but not too many scenes where gets to do something really cool all by himself. The only real fight he has is against Furiosa, so I would have loved to see him do some more badass shit. Fight against Rictus doesn’t really count, too short and unmemorable.

  9. Thank you for a fine review of an extraordinary piece of filmed entertainment Vern. I appreciate your no nonsense approach in appraising a movie that demands to wear the moniker “masterpiece.” It is the rare circumstance that a motion picture this confident arrives on the scene. No point in pussy-footing around this unusual situation.

    After the lights in the theater came up, my fourteen year old daughter turned to me and asked “Dad, can we watch this again … now?” She has experienced all the recent blockbusters but this was the only time she has asked to watch a film again immediately. We went to the ticket counter but the next session—the last of the evening—was sold out. We had to content ourselves discussing our favorite parts of the film on the way home.

    Two days have passed and George Miller’s instant classic has paradoxically left me with a sense of melancholy because I have started to convince myself that MAD MAX: FURY ROAD will only be enhanced (bloody hell, is this even possible!?) by being sequel-less*. Like Mr. Rockatansky looking over his shoulder and quietly acknowledging Ms. Furiosa before walking away, this film gazes into the audience and quietly states, “Well, that was a hell of a thing,” before drifting off into the wasteland. There goes the last of the cinematic V-8 Interceptors people …

    Oh, by the way, Max convincing Furiosa and the Vulvani to turn around and go back the way they came is NOT a lazy piece of script writing like some guy by the name of Above Average Lawrence suggested. Like most great archetypal, wandering samurai, lone gunmen figures, Max helps out a community in need and leaves them in a stronger position than they were previously. Where are you going to plant those seeds? In the mud flats? The salt plain? No, you’re going to go back to the only place you can. It’s going to be difficult, but I’ll help you.

    *Other motion pictures that are not Mad Max sequels from the Cinematic Mechanic George Miller will still be eagerly received.

  10. No personality? You are as crazy as one of those warboyz. How many movies have you seen with a flamethrowing electric guitar, where a protagonist washes away blood from his face with mothers milk and all the other kind of awesome kind of quirks you´d usually find in a low budget exploitation flick, but ends up in a world wide distributed blockbuster?

  11. Great review to an amazing film! Having seen it just once in 2D two days ago, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s just so good!

    I like the turning point (no pun intended) in the story where they decide to go back – I think it works on a number of levels, but mostly it’s just economic storytelling. It serves to raise the stakes and also to facilitate some kind of pay-off for all those people back at the Citadel. Having said that, one minor nitpick from me is that it seemed a bit too convenient for them to just go back there and owning that place when they finally arrive. When they introduced the Citadel in the beginning of the film it seemed so enormous that I just assumed that there would be like an army of henchmen there, but nope, the ones who went out with Immortan Joe were all of them. Maybe this is due to some misplaced expectations on my part, but all in all I really loved the movie so I can easily ignore stuff like that.

  12. Apparently Heath Ledger was going to be Max after Mel left.

  13. Great review, Vern. Spot on and 100% reflecting of my own feelings about the movie. I can see why some warboyz don’t like it, because in addition to being the best action movie ever it’s also the most politically mature action movie ever. They will accuse it of being feminist, leftist, propagandist, anti-religious etc, etc, but that anger just means Doc Miller got it right. FURY ROAD is as important to movie history as CITIZEN KANE.

  14. Man after seeing this on friday, I realized that the same dicks back in the day who bitched about George Miller doing a Justice League film will now commence revisionistic history and lament in sorrow about how *he* could’ve launched the DCCU instead of Zack Snyder. Then I looked up at some of the nerd boards and YUP I was right.

    Whatever. I’m glad I got this film instead. Better an unrestrained great film like this than one potentially hogtied by people worried about lunchbox sales.

  15. I really liked the film but could’ve done with less CGI and more of Megan Gale as The Valkyrie. Pity she bowed out so early.

    Oh and, by the way, am I the only one wondering why Hardy’s Max speaks with Riddick’s voice? That opening narration?
    Had he started talking about his mind not being able to shut down in cryo-sleep, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  16. “Also, people saying Theron isn’t good in this are flatout insane”

    How so? Basically all she does is scowl, glare, or look intense a lot. I realize the script doesn’t really CALL for her to do more to scowl and look intense a lot so that’s not her fault, but even then, never once did I get the feeling she was scowling or glaring or looking intense cause she felt it, rather than because the director/script said “glare here, scowl there”.

    For comparison, I’ll point to another movie series with a lot of car action…in a Fast & Furious movie, when Vin Diesel is discussing something goofy like “living life a quarter mile at a time”, or when Tyrese is joking around being a wiseass, or The Rock is threatening to whoop someone’s ass, I feel it. Those guys, while not thespians by any means, at least make me feel like they care about what’s going on, like they’re feeling real emotion and believe what they’re saying. All Charlize makes me feel is that she’s here cause her agent thought it would be good for her to be here.

  17. From the first seconds i fall in love with this movie. And while i admire all of the technical aspects (great use of cgi),
    what really make me love it in the first place, is the fact that it´s a thing of classic beauty in the Hawksian way.
    Man and women are all defined by their actions, not their speeches.
    Fury Road became a favorite from the start.

  18. I liked it and will probably see it again. Definitely on an action design level it’s the best thing to come along in quite a while.

    I do think the whole “It’s feminist!” meme is being overstated, and that the alleged retention of Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) is silly. The “feminist” storyline of the movie is very basic: rescue the sex slaves. That’s all pulled off through action, not through dialogue or monologues about gender or freedeom. So, really, what did Eve Ensler really add to any of this? Nothing except her name/brand. They paid her a consulting fee so that George Miller and Company can say: “Hey, our movie can’t be mysogynistic even though it has five damsels in distress and a scene where an injured woman is literally cut open so that her unborn baby can be pulled out of her — it can’t be mysogynistic because loo, Eve Ensler’s name is in the credits.”

    Charlize Theron was quite good in the movie but her “bad ass female” isn’t anywhere near as novel as the critical community is pretending in their celebration of this movie. I mean, has everyone just forgotten about Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor (T2), Black Widow, and 9/10s of the characters that Angelina Jolie has played? Again, Theron’s great, but if I read one more review that pretends we’ve never seen a female action hero before I’m going to scream (not talking about Vern’s review here).

    The sex slave women are, really, pretty much damsels. The desert motorcycle women were interesting characters and I liked them, but most of them end up getting their asses kicked and don’t really do much in terms of winning the day. So I’m a little put off by the phony feminism meme and it bothers me that that label was necessary to win the approval of the critics. This movie deserves a high Rotten Tomatoes average for its amazing world design, teriffic action and great imagination, but I guarantee you that if they hadn’t slapped Eve Ensler’s name on those credits its average would have landed in the 90s where it is now — the mainstream critics are way more impressed by that kind of thing than they are with the nuts and bolts of telling a great adventure story.

  19. I think it has the right to be called feminist if it has a female character that drives the story instead of serving the male lead. ALIEN, TERMINATOR are good examples of that.

  20. This IS a 10/10 movie, and it IS, in fact, the best action movie this side of one-two 91/92 punch of Terminator 2 and Hard Boiled. Damn near every single element of its craft worked towards the whole. The themes, production/costume design, the score, the editing, the performances, the pacing of its narrative into discrete chapters, the weaving of character beats and story into the action, the incredibly kinetic and creative sequences that almost always coherent and readable, the expert direction, the usage of the latest filmmaking technique and technology. The use of color and negative space and the attention to detail and spatial awareness and my fuckin’ goodness.

    We here at OutlawVern, as action movie fans, we’re used to talented guys making something from nothing. We stick with the DTV films with the obvious low budgets and stiff acting because we see the talent coming through in the action. We watch those incredibly earnest, melodramatic HK Action films with generic narratives because the action delivers. Seeing scrappy, ingenious filmmakers make a whole lot of practically nothing is inspiring and exciting, but seeing them make a whole lot out of a whole lot is absolutely mindblowing. To be, maybe, the only English language film 2 hour film thats over 60% action set pieces, for all those set pieces to be so good, for the film to be so gorgeous, performances so strong, world building and themes so rich on top of it? For the story it wanted to tell cinematically, its essentially perfect. George Miller had the time, money, the technical know-how to polish this thing up til its gleans, and we’re all the better for it.

    I’m going crazy with hyperbole here, but I’ve just been so excited for this film for so long…for it to actually EXCEED my expectations like this and become one of the greatest action movies of all-time? The biggest, most beautiful, most thrilling, most thematically rich Mad Max ever? With some of the greatest action and world building in genre history? A 10/10 straight up movie masterpiece? An action film that can stand up with Raiders, Aliens, and yes, our sweet beloved Die Hard? IN 2015, the post Michael Bay Transformers era?

    Its nothing short of a miracle, that this movie exists, in this form. God bless Warner Bros and god bless George Miller.

  21. Its not even just there it has a female lead that drives the story. Its LITERALLY about the matriarchy overthrowing the tyranny of the patriarchy who’ve killed the world, right down to the big women who release the water onto the Citadel. Women tired of being treated as objects and would rather face death than be anybody’s slave. People who want the same right to live and be happy as us dudes with our dicks.

    I mean, thankfully nobody ever comes out and says “Women deserves equal rights!” and shouted to the world how feminist it was, but its pretty goddamn blatant what its trying to do. Its, at the very least, displays some of the most non-regressive sexual politics in a genre that mostly treats them as empty plot devices or mcguffins.

  22. I think the whole solidarity between the different women has a pretty strong feminist subtext.
    Also, while it is pretty clear, that Max and Furiosa, have pretty visible feelings for each other, there is no forced
    hollywood lovestory in the movie. The way they look at each other, and how Max reacts when Furiosa is wounded,
    says it all. Kudos alone for that.

  23. I’m almost certainly the only cat on here not to have seen this yet but everyone’s joyous reactions to it on here are just fantastic to read and I love to see that it is exceeding expectations, which is nothing short of a goddamn miracle.

    Due to a bad back I won’t be seeing this on the big screen and I’m super bummed out by that but I can only promise to see it on BD as soon as is humanly possible. Sorry, action movie-going fraternity. Sorry, Max.

    As for box office, it seems it’s doing as well as it could possibly do for an R-rated sequel to an “old” franchise and I guess that has to be enough. Will we get a trilogy? Probably nah, but I never thought we would – the fact this film exists alone is amazing enough, but as Vern and others have pointed out, this one has legs/wheels, so who knows?

  24. Vern-

    In the great MAD MAX tradition, this will leave viewers wondering about alot of things by not seeming to follow continuity. In guilty hallucinations and nightmares Max seems to have had a daughter that died. Is this in place of his son Sprog from part 1? Did he have another kid since the poxyclipse? Or adopt one of those plane crash survivors that didn’t need another hero?

    Well I think the little girl is heard to say “help us, Max”, so I think all that was just another situation where Max tried to help people in trouble, but it went really bad that time, and messed Max up. Also when he decides to go back to tell the others they need to make for the Citadel instead of keep going, he hallucinates the two figures in the far distance you can’t make out and a different voice saying “Come on, pop”, which I assume is Sprog.

    Anyway, I loved it, super inventive, but still a fairly straightforward story and amazing action. Though the film does succumb to a trend I’ve noticed in action movies nowadays, which is cars that don’t explode when they crash, only when they’re hit with explosives. It’s been really noticeable of late, particularly in the last FAST AND FURIOUS movie where a car can tumble down a cliff or fall out of a skyscraper for fifty storeys but just turns into a wreck, no boom. I know that’s probably more realistic, but it’s also less satisfying. And now in this, the final set-piece ends in the huge bottleneck pileup shot, and there’s no fiery explosion either, even though when they discuss the plan earlier, one of the Vuvalini excitedly goes “BOOOOOM!” when talking about it.
    That aside, still pretty good though.

  25. This really is an amazing piece of film making. I can’t wait to see it again. It kind of reminded me of Friedkin’s SORCERER, both films are about desperate people on a dangerous caravan in search of redemption/freedom.

    Did anybody else think of LL Cool J when it was revealed that Immortan Joe kept his “breeder” ladies in a bank vault? Obviously Joe must have missed the video for “I’m That Type Of Guy”. If Furiosa had not freed them it was only a matter of time before Uncle L got to them.

  26. I’ll just chime in as another person who thought this was a goddamn masterpiece. I haven’t gotten around to seeing it in theaters a second time, but I will. Discussing the film afterwards, I came to the conclusion that the Mad Max films are kind of like the action film equivalents to Wes Anderson movies. Like Anderson, Miller is a visual storyteller. He believes in pure cinema. And like Anderson, Miller obsessively returns to the same themes again and again, attempting to improve upon the last iteration. Unlike Anderson, however, Miller’s films kick a ton of ass. Both filmmakers show that there’s something admirable in chasing an idea across multiple films until you are finally able to fully realize it. This movie actually made me want to see those Happy Feet films, which is a pretty big accomplishment in and of itself.

  27. Woke up Friday morning and went to the 10am showing of The Avengers. As soon as that was over I bought tickets to the 1am Mad Max: Fury Road, and it was so good that I went back to the theater that night for the 10pm show.

    And I’ll probably see it again. Because it’s amazing. It’s in the top five of movies I’ve seen in a theater.

    The fact that Pitch Perfect 2 is clobbering this at the box office makes me super duper sad.

  28. Also, I like to think that George Miller’s potential Justice League film is Vern’s version of all of the people Mad Max couldn’t save. No matter how hard he tried, Vern wasn’t able to change public opinion on George Miller’s Justice League, and the trauma haunts him to this day.

  29. Great review, Vern.
    Seen it twice all ready as well; the first time in 2D and the second in 3D. While I agree that the camerawork AMD choreography are enhanced by the 3D (I flinched a couple of times too), the incredible loss in brightness (I’d guess at least two full stops of light are lost) that the post-conversion process requires made the 2D version far superior for me…it was just so much more VIVID and detailed in the 2D version. I might be wrong, but I strongly think you’ll agree after you see it in 2D.

    You pretty much hit on all the great moments, but I’ll add one that you left out: Hardy’s delivery when he finally tells Furiosa his name. “Max…my name is Max” like he’s almost surprised at the very sound of it, like he hadn’t even allowed himself to remember his own name in ages. You got the feeling that it had been a very, very long time since he had told anyone his name. Such a simple line, but Hardy managed to make it really moving and poignant.

  30. I can’t get my head around why anybody would dislike this film. I’ll admit I struggled with the first big set piece due to being overwhelmed with a 3D/D-box combo but from that scrap between the two leads onwards, I was onboard. The balls and passion on display here blew me away. I was surprised how easily they could have swapped out Hardy for Gibson – third act aside, the role wasnt as physical as I was expecting. I suppose the decision was part franchise future proofing and part ‘sugar tits’. I loved that cheesy ‘fuck yeah’ turning back moment. It felt genuinely pretty earned by that point of the movie. Again, there’s so much safe, bland and predictable content being rammed down our throats on a daily basis…this is a unicorn that should be captured and studied. And any Charlize Theron haters should check out ‘Young Adult’. Great review, Vern

  31. Am i the only one who fell in love with Furiosa ?

  32. Ben, you don’t think the critics just found a story about women freeing themselves from religious, sexual and violent tyranny, and getting treated as human beings by the hero, more interesting than James Cameron digging chicks with big guns?

  33. Vern, I also pondered Furiosa’s badass murder line, “Remember me?” Do you suppose she was originally raised as one of the wives? It would make sense. She’s healthy and beautiful and obviously knows the brides personally, who basically live in seclusion behind a large metal door.

    I suspect Furiosa showed too much spunk and Fury to remain a bride and was recruited and trained to be an Imperator. Many things are implied by that line.

  34. Great Review Vern.

  35. I’ll chime in on the movie as a whole. It was fantastic and will probably be the best movie of the year (We still have THE HATEFUL 8 to look forward too).

    FURY ROAD starts off shaky though. I disliked Max’s narration and the corny flashbacks suggesting an alternate past. He was captured way too quickly when you compare it to the opening chase from ROAD WARRIOR. I suspect a lot of stuff was deleted from the first act in order to get Furiosa on the road sooner. As a result, Max is a little under served.

    Having said that, once Furiosa hits the road, it’s on in a big way. The brilliance here is how most, if not all the characterizations happen in the action beats. They form into a team, work together and get to know one another through action. When they are not in battle together, they are travelling silently, alone and isolated in their own heads.

    The complete lack of any verbal exposition was totally welcome and refreshing in today’s climate of over explaining everything and everyone’s motivations for doing anything. Here, we catch up just as things are speeding up. There is a sense of hanging on by the fingertips for the ride of our lives.

    This movie is in the pantheon of greatest action movies ever.

  36. I saw this Thursday night, first possible showing. Absolutely loved everything about it. I agree with everything that’s been said about this being an instant classic, it’s definitely a masterpiece. I can’t wait to see it again. It’s also great because this film seems to blend so much together in one. Old school practical effects with just the right amount of CGI enhancement, and a reliance more on visual storytelling combined with the complexity of modern action set pieces. It feels almost like the pinnacle of what a contemporary blockbuster can achieve. As for the whole feminist thing, it’s pretty explicit and awesome. It’s also key to the ending and their decision to turn around, which isn’t a bad story beat at all. It has meaning, because it’s saying that these women shouldn’t just run away from the patriarchy, they should face it head on and take back their home, while at the same time achieving this through Max’s help. It’s about how the patriarchy is harmful to both men and woman, and how they must work together for equality instead. It’s a very multilayered film all around, I’d say.

  37. You know a movie gets the politics right when it infuriates (irony intended) a certain kind of “victim”:

    http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/05/17/1421248/mens-rights-activists-call-for-boycott-of-mad-max-fury-road

  38. My only issue with the film is that they didn’t run over enough dummies. Part of what made The Road Warrior’s action scenes so visceral were all the dummies that got mashed. Still loved the movie though.

  39. Pegsman – I think there’s more to James Cameron’s action heroines than just chicks with guns. For evidence, look no further than this Sarah Connor one sheet for Terminator Genisys:

    http://i0.wp.com/www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/Terminator-Genisys-Sarah-Connor-Character-Poster.jpg

    Sarah Connor is far more sexualized than she was in T2.

    I really loved the overt feminism of the film, but sometimes critics forget that action movies have had strong female leads on and off for the past forty years. Every time an action film has a female lead, critics tend to act surprised or think that it is somehow revolutionary when in fact at this point women in action roles is a regular occurrence. But, of course, you’re right that this film does add to the conversation about women’s experience in ways that other action films have not.

  40. This is one of those rare instances where I have totally overhyped myself for a movie, built it up to an impossible standard in my mind, and yet the movie somehow exceeds my expectations. Walking out of the theater on Friday night, I couldn’t get past the feeling that I had just seen a modern masterpiece. A second viewing yesterday confirmed this. This film is a godsend to action fans. I don’t know if there’s any way I could be more pleased with it, other than if George Miller used a time machine to bring us an early-90s Mel Gibson for the starring role. Imperator Furiosa belongs in the pantheon of ass-kicking female action heroes right along side Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. Naw, screw that. She belongs in the pantheon of great action heroes period, alongside John McClane, John Rambo and John Matrix. Maybe Johnny Utah, as well. (oh and Max Rockatansky, natch) I’ve always had a crush on Ms. Theron, but I was absolutely in love with Furiosa. How about that part when she punches Max with her stump?!!! Or the part where Max silently acknowledges that she’s the better shot with the rifle? Or when she just fearlessly charges at Max while he’s holding the breeders at gunpoint? Holy shit, she was great!

    I have been gushing endlessly about this movie for the past 48 hours and I can’t wait to watch it again. Hell, I might go tonight. Maybe in 2D this time. I’m sorry it sounds like some of you had bad 3D screenings. I guess I’m spoiled because I got to see it at the Grauman’s Chinese with the new IMAX laser projectors. The contrast and brightness and colors were perfect. As good as film, if not better.

    As for the feminist overtones, that only enhanced the movie for me. If the whiny man-babies on those MRA websites can’t appreciate this movie for what it is because of that, their loss. (I actually got banned from A Voice For Men yesterday for trolling those punks) And it’s not “phony feminism” as Ben said earlier in the comments. Others have already detailed the ways in which the storyline is VERY overtly a feminist fight against a patriarchy. I also have to disagree with Ben that putting Eve Ensler’s name in the credits somehow helped get this movie better reviews. I’m not sure why you think film critics would even be swayed by that.

    As for Ensler’s involvement with the film, she did work with sex slaves in the Congo and George Miller brought her in as a consultant because he has sex slaves as prominent characters in this. So she was there to help with their performances, not as some token trophy to deflect criticism as Ben claims. Sorry to be piling on so much, Ben, but it really seems like you didn’t understand some of the major themes of this film.

    But, holy shit, this movie. I watch just about every major blockbuster action movie that comes along and I guess I must have been lowering my standards for years now because I didn’t even realize it was possible to make a movie like this. This is seriously one for the record books. I’m glad you enjoyed the movie as much as I did, Vern. I really enjoyed reading your review!

  41. Rogue4, what’s the deal with posting those links? Are you implying that those express your own views? You just posted them without saying anything about them.

  42. Ace Mac Ashbrook

    May 17th, 2015 at 11:37 am

    Truly great movie with a Vern review to match.

    I walked out of it in stunned silence.

    And have been driving like a prick ever since.

  43. Movie is an insane classic. No hyperbole. Going back next weekend.

  44. Pitch Perfect 2 is killing Mad Max in the Box office. I know Max will prevail in the long run but, please, everyone, implore the women in your lives to support Fury Road. They will thank you for it.

  45. Considering that it’s R rated and an entry in a franchise most of it’s target audience is not familiar with it seems to be doing pretty well. I’m quite sure WB is relieved.

  46. Daryll, my wife loves it just as much as I do.

  47. Yeah, $44m opening weekend for a weird, R-rated reboot/sequel thing to a long dead franchise that unfortunately hasn’t stuck in people’s minds like Rambo or Die Hard have…I mean that’s good. Not great, but not bad or anything. I haven’t seen ANY kind of hype for Tomorrowland or Poltergeist opening next week, so hopefully it’ll have some legs going forward. Its a great film, so maybe WOM will be good.

    The $400m WW total its inevitably going to make would be great if the film didn’t cost damnit $200m lol

  48. It was a good movie. Not sure if it deserves all the verbal fellatio it is receiving but hey, to each their own.

    Liked: The batshit craziness of it. The car chases/fights were awesome. The color palette was crisp and bright. The music merged seamlessly with the visuals. The smoking hot brunette wives, especially Zoe Kravitz. I like short, athletic chicks and watching her run was a thing of beauty. No mincing, girly-girl running…she was flatout hauling ass!

    Disliked: The sped-up film parts. WTF? Took me right out. I couldn’t understand half of what was being said. Hardy’s accent. Was that supposed to be Australian or Bane 2.0? The kung-fu movie style fast-forwarding/speeding up of the film. I know I mentioned it already but FUCK it was annoying as shit.

    All in all, a good time at the theater and I didn’t feel like I got ripped off. Too bad Mel wasn’t Max in this. His age would have lent itself well to the apathy and world-weariness of Max.

  49. If you see a young person in the street who looks like they might be a video gamer, grab them and yell “You like FALLOUT, right? Well did you know Mad Max is the inspiration for it???”

  50. Jeremy:
    http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=furyroad.htm

    The remaining countries it’s slated to open in are Hungary, Cambodia, Poland, and Japan. Not sure if they’ll have a significant impact.

    So… it’s gonna pull down about $110 million worldwide this weekend. $200 million worldwide seems well within its reach, but $300 million is touch-and-go and THAT’s how much it needs to gross before a sequel becomes thinkable.

    Could happen, but it needs a solid 2nd weekend and good word of mouth.

  51. Stu: I had a guy said Mad Max looked like “some bad Borderlands rip-off”

    I wanted to slap the shit out of this person. Where do you think this aesthetic came from!?

  52. Thanks for the great, comprehensive review.

    P.S. – The scene observing the satellites in the sky was beautifully shot.

  53. One of the best movies of ALL TIME.

  54. I loved this movie. So many thoughts, but I’ll try to be brief:

    – I agree with Vern’s review that it felt like there was more digital work than they’re letting on. I think some of the more obvious CGI parts made some viewers not think they were seeing practical effects other times, which hurt their suspension of disbelief, and made them appreciate the practical stuff a little less. Just a theory.

    – The audience I saw it with was mostly silent as well, then I walked out in the lobby and several groups of audience members were babbling about how great it was. I spent large parts of the movie slack-jawed myself.

    – I have watched both Furious 7 and Age of Ultron recently, and when it comes to my personal taste, those flicks were nothing compared to this. They both had very good parts, but THIS…THIS!

    – I watched a couple of trailers, but not all of them, and as they were driving into the storm, I realized “good grief, the trailer only showed the first 30 minutes of this thing!”

    I think once people view this minus the baggage of over-the-top Internet hyperbole, they’ll be able to take a deep breath and say, “OF COURSE this movie was fantastic.”

  55. The only thing that bugged me about this movie is how everyone bar main charecters is Super australian. Like if any movie should have picked a bunch of cool lesser known Australian actors for the main roles it should have been this. Suddenly having Theron and Hoult talking super American is weird as hell.

  56. Hoult sounded Australian to me (though it was through a weird feral “WarBoyz” sort of dialect). It wouldn’t even make sense for him to be American as he’s from the UK.

  57. George Miller is 70 years old and he just told everyone making action movies today to either step up their game or kindly get the fuck off his lawn. Bravo.

    Did anyone else think the scene where Max killed the guys off screen and came back with guns was a nod to SEVEN SAMURAI?

  58. There are so many great parts that even in that long-ass review I missed a whole bunch of things I meant to mention. One of them RJ brought up: the part where Max has one bullet left and realizes that the best thing to do is give the gun to Furiosa. And then she uses him as a tripod. And it was the right decision. Beautiful. This is another instance of him being treated as an inanimate object (like when he was a bloodbag), but this time it’s consensual. And later he becomes her bloodbag by choice too.

    Another classic action movie moment is when he makes his proposal in the salt flats and holds his hand out. She thinks about it, then she shakes his hand. It’s going in the pantheon of badass handshakes along with the one from PREDATOR.

  59. I wonder if the people who enjoyed complaining about orange and teal color-grading for a year or two after they read some article about it are now praising this movie for its vibrant colors. Do we know what we’re supposed to whine about in movies for 2015? Or has the Internet not yet reached a consensus on that? I like to keep as cutting edge as possible, but with a full time job I just haven’t been able to devote as much time to my whining as I would like.

  60. Somebody online made a good point about how the villain and his two subordinates represent the industries running our current industrialized World Order: Water, guns, and oil/gas. Even notice how they’re all fucked up (OK sure the Bullet Farmer got blinded thanks to Theron), but that does represent how they were parasites of the old world and now continue to do this shit in this hellscape.

  61. Also I saw somebody on Facebook attack this movie for being “fatphobic.”

    Liberals continue to be Liberals’ worst enemy.

  62. The ‘spit-off’ between Nux and Slit, both perched on the respective hoods of their vehicles and blowing high octane fuel into the engine blowers during the road war was a fantastic idea. Max stepping up and taking over after Nux encounters back wash made me laugh out loud. Someone please give George Miller a medal.

  63. This was an absolutely outstanding movie, the imagination in the visual design reminded me at times of movies like THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, it’s just the kind of surreal, detailed visuals you almost never see in movies anymore, especially not in mainstream releases.

    And the action scenes, what can I say that hasn’t been said already? It was genius of Miller to *SPOILER* kill off the pregnant girl early on because you knew that meant that no one outside of Max was safe, I developed a certain fondness for the goggles wearing red haired girl that developed a sweet relationship with Nux and I was on the edge of my seat during the final chase hoping she would survive, I can’t remember an action sequence that exiting where you felt like there were actual stakes in a long, long time.

  64. Thought the deal was fairly straightforward RJ. Pointing out the bogus nature of the alleged MRA boycott of this film. For my part I found some eye-rolling feminist type elements present in the film (“Who killed the world?” …uhm same ones who built it, if we’re fine with one half gettin all the credit… or… Humanity. Which includes humans with uteri). But I don’t think those elements overtook the film or that Max was relegated to guest star status.

  65. The fact remains that one MRA dude on one MRA site called for a boycott of the film and a bunch of his followers said they were going to boycott it because feminism. Calling it “alleged” or “bogus” just because that dude doesn’t consider himself an MRA is pretty specious. He shares the same philosophy, the same fear and disdain of women and the same talking points as other MRA sites. It’s splitting hairs to say that he’s not part of that group.

  66. caruso_stalker217

    May 17th, 2015 at 9:44 pm

    marlow:

    I also immediately thought of SEVEN SAMURAI during that scene.

    This movie was pretty damn awesome. Gonna watch it again Tuesday.

  67. Just got back from seeing it. I had heard so much hype leading into it (and gotten a few ‘OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG’ texts) that I was actually prepared to have my expectations dashed, I had pre-emptively made myself okay with that, because nothing could really live up to what people were saying. But then it totally did. Awesome movie. I’m definitely gonna see it again in theatres.

  68. I also wished Miller had continued the tradition of Mxx having a pet . I wanted him to have a pig in this one as an allusion to BABE.

  69. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER EVEN THOUGH ITS A MINOR SPOILER IM STILL DOING THIS TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM ANY SPOLERSPOILERSPOILERS.

    How about that callback to the Road Warrior shotgun gag? At sxsw miller said he actually forgot he’s already done that until he say Road Warrior again. That makes it even better. It works both says!

  70. Don’t know when I can see it, thanks to a summerflu (although I’m sure being exposed to FURY ROAD can even cure cancer) and other stuff. But until then: This made me smile a lot https://vimeo.com/127993687

  71. Marlow – Are you referring to the scene in the Seven Samurai where the one Sanmurai shaves his head pretending to be a monk in order to rescue some hostages? He goes into the tent where the hostages are held and kills the men holding them but we never see exactly what he does. (I think this is how it goes down. I haven’t seen the Seven Samurai in a while). I wouldn’t have thought of that off the top of my head, but I can definitely see the influence now.

    I will say that as much as I liked Tom Hardy in this film (and in general), Gibson had a certain way of dialogue free acting that I miss. It’s probably too early to talk sequels, but I would love to see how Hardy grows into the role.

  72. Hey Griff do you know that that girl is Elvis’ granddaughter?

    any other director would have probably had her sing her dialogue.

    I’m still kind of grasping what I saw yesterday. I’ll try to gather my complete thoughts and come with a more elaborate post that touches on things that may have not been discussed yet in the future.

    Here’s one. So Max’s “daughter”. Since she kept calling him Max I didn’t think that it was a retcon. Especially because they made it a point to also show other people haunting him because he failed to protect them and they didn’t have what it took to survive.

    So I had assumed that like in road warrior and Thunderdome max kept reluctantly helping people he came across as he drifted across the wastelands like heroes in westerns. Just a guy trying to help maintain a little sanity in an insane world. All because regardless of how hardened a Road Warrior he had become the cop in him refuses to die.

    So it was just somebody that he failed to save. Sure at some point she calls him pop but I assumed that was just a term and of endearment because she grew to view him as a father figure and not because he was her actual father.

    Well when I went to the comic shop it turns out there is a prequel comic and that my assumption was correct. She was a child that he failed to protect from the gang of buzzards. so it’s still very much max

    Now that has led to a max who is no longer mad because he bottles up anger and randomly explodes like Gibson used to. He is now mad because he is traumatized and has night terrors and horrible hallucinations and I don’t know how I really feel about that yet. However it’s still an indication that this is indeed the max that we are familiar with and not some brand new rebooted version in an alternate reality.

    Another point I don’t know if other commenters pointed out because I haven’t read all the comments yet its just how amazingly lived in the presentation of the wastelands was. Even more so than Thunderdome.

    For instance I absolutely loved how far along and varied the stables and gangs have come since the days of toecutter and even Lord humongous. We now have a gang of actual buzzard people with porcupine vehicles that equip buzz saws coexisting with a tribe a strong women that houses sniper grannies.

    We have a war party led by three distinctive and tyrannical captains of industry (water, guns and oil) co existing with rocky area dwelling nomads who seem to worship George Clinton (not George S. Clinton). The imagination and creativity that went into all that just blew my mind. I mean for example how sweet was the vehicle of the captain of weapons?

    Speaking of the vehicles it’s amazing that the vehicles continue to be characters into themselves in this franchise. it’s also very welcome. one other aspect lived in quality of the movie’s world building that I felt was a really nice touch was showing us the after effects of living in an atomic age.

    we’ve had glimpses of that in the previous movies but this one really went all in. From showing us all the deformities and afflictions that plauge the mutated children of the atom (no X-Men) to giant stilted mutated crows. It was a really nice touch and showing us just how fucked up things have become for the citizens of this world.

  73. Shoot I also missed dog. I assume at this point pets just aren’t viable anymore. Things have further degenerated to the point that even Max is now eating two-headed mutant lizards and I just relying on cans of beans for sustenance.

    It was also really cool to see Miller’s Wonder Woman (Megan Gale) do her thing on the screen.

  74. Meant to type

    *isn’t just

    Not “I just”.

  75. Ive seen it twice now. Once in 3D and again in 2D. I loved it even more in 2D. The action was way more comprehensible and my eye was able to wander across the screen without the annoying eyeglass frames visible in my peripheral vision. The entire film had a more filmic look.

    Some of the digital work is more apparent in 2D and I did miss the instances of shit flying at my face but I highly recommend watching it in both formats for comparison. A different experience all around.

  76. Might see it in 3D for my second viewing but I loved it so much in the regular 2D format (so visually vibrant and clear) that I don’ even know if I really will.

  77. RBatty024, I believe folks are referring to the scene in SEVEN SAMURAI where, I think it’s Katsushiro, goes into the foggy night alone and returns the next morning having killed a number of bandits during the night. It’s one of the top badass moments in film history.

  78. Well, that’s a relief. The first time I saw this, it got stuck in like-not-love territory for me. I couldn’t figure it out. It was an objectively excellent movie that did almost everything right (more on that “almost” later) yet I was not blow away by it. I was entertained, sure, but I didn’t cackle with bloodthirsty glee the way I usually do when a piece of the badass cinema is really working on me. It bummed me out that I couldn’t share in this transcendental experience everyone else was having.

    Part of it was my own baggage. Lots of people seem to think that Mel was an incidental element of the original films’ success, that Miller’s style and the stunt work was the main draw and you could drop any old laconic leading man in there and voila, instant Max. I disagree, and I did not immediately take to Hardy or the way he was written. Opening with narration from a character known for saying like 20 words a movie was a rough way to start, and having him literally haunted by the memories of those he could not save made clunky text out of the elegant subtext of the previous two entries. The mystique of Max is that you don’t ever know too much about what’s going on in his head, so giving us two direct pipelines to his innermost thoughts seemed very wrong to me. I also don’t believe that Max even knows the word “redemption,” let alone possess the self-awareness required to express his desire for it.

    Plus, Hardy talks like a prep school werewolf. Seemed wrong for blue-collar-to-the-bone Max.

    I didn’t want to be the lone drifter wandering the wastes shouting to the burnt heavens that FURY ROAD was good but I don’t know there was something missing, so I saw it again and realized the real problem: that first theater sucked. It was probably early 90s vintage, with shitty sound, an aisle straight up the center so there were no perfect seats, and a tiny screen dotted with distracting rips and stains. Seeing it in a good theater made all the difference. This time everything was shiny and chrome. The drums alone got me pumped. I still think those quibbles I brought up are actual weaknesses but they don’t fucking matter at all because the movie was a blast, positively overstuffed with both big moments and tiny details. I know I’ll watch it at least three more times before the year is out. We’re talking instant classic here. So I’m glad we don’t have a RAID 2 situation and I get to sit at the cool kids table this time.

    HOWEVER!

    I kept getting distracted by the math. So Furiosa was kidnaped by Joe 7000 days ago, or roughly 20 years. Which means that society must have fallen a while before that in order for everybody to forget the ways of the old world and start coming up with clan names and going on raiding parties and stuff. Say the poxyclips happened 30 years ago, which fits in with stuff Miller has said.

    Hardy is 37. And not an old 37, either. You’d think the lack of nutrition and constant baking sun would age him faster, but let’s say the Rockatanskies are blessed with good genes and grant him a generous 42. Which means he was a grizzled cop on the ragged edge when he was, what, 12? Younger actually, because he was a bronze for at least a few years before the shit really went down. (This isn’t retconned, either, because he mentions his police past in the lamentable opening narration.) So is anybody else thinking that Miller took the first draft of the script he wrote for age-appropriate Mel and just subbed in Hardy without bothering to change anything to make it make sense? It would have also been thematically appropriate to have an older Mel fight against Joe, an old man clinging to the same predatory ways that killed the world in the first place. Two representatives of the dead world fighting for the future of the new one. It adds up.

    But whatever. I can remake this movie in my head a million times and it won’t be as cool as the one we got, wonky backstory and cheeseball J-horror ghosts and all, so this’ll be the last we ever see of these nitpicks. They live now…only in my memories.

    (The Interceptor kind of went out like a sucker, though, didn’t it?)

    DETAILS I NOTICED!

    • Joe’s spud-like son has either a pacemaker or a heart transplant scar. In this world where everyone else lives a half-life, this useless, coddled mutant has his decadent existence extended by technology none of the lower classes would ever have access to.

    • Max’s blood type makes him a universal donor. Despite his sincerest efforts, saving people’s lives is encoded in his DNA.

    • Joe’s mask has an open-mouthed setting for special occasions. Do you think it’s automatic or did he have to stop to press a button or something before he posed with The Splendid Angharad in his arms? “Oh no! What a tragedy! Please wait a sec while I switch to ‘roar with rage and grief’ mode. Okay, now I’m ready. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

    • The Doof Warrior’s rig not only has guitar and drums but also a horn section bolted all along the perimeter. Shame they didn’t activate the brass for a real symphonic/blaxploitation overture.

    • The brief look of bliss on Max’s face when his hands are uncuffed. You can see him thinking, “And that’s all I need, you poor, stupid, doomed motherfuckers.”

    • The guy with bullets for teeth.

    • The grandmas are still my favorite part.

  79. Mr. Majestyk – god es

    When I saw those horns I was like “wtf what a complete wade”

    the drums and guitar combo already had me manic. Horns would’ve had me jumping over people sitting in the rows.

    I’m looking forward to what Junkie XL brings to Batman vs. Superman cause his musical sensibilities are dope as fuck and frankly I’m sick of and never really liked Hans Zimmer’s superhero stuff.

  80. *complete waste

  81. The age thing doesn’t really bother me because I view this film as being larger than life in a way. It’s kinda like The Dollars Trilogy, these films are more like myths or dreams as opposed to literal events, and I think that’s supposed to be the point. Max’s age doesn’t matter because everything is so larger than life, he’s more of a mythical figure than a person, and all the films are just different stories or legends that he happens to be a part of. Imagine a young wasteland kid being told this by his father or something, like the narration in The Road Warrior. In fact, one could pretty solidly argue that everything in The Road Warrior isn’t literal in the same way, because of the narrator. It’s implied from the beginning that you’re hearing a retelling of something, not experiencing it firsthand. Similarly, I’ve seen people mention that Fury Road disregards space, and I think that also fits in with what I’m saying. It’s like a nightmare, they can never escape Imortan Joe and his band, no matter how far they go. The logistics don’t matter because the events of a film aren’t always literal.

  82. Only movie that follows a straightforward sense of narrative is the original. When it comes to ROAD WARRIOR and THUNDERDOME the best comparison is definitely the Dollars trilogy where the mysterious drifter reluctantly helps out in his world before moving along and drifting away somewhere else. Max is the center of his world but by proxy that also makes him an urban legend and pretty mythological like Evan said. The real personalities are the people he comes across and they pass their version of the legend along like the adult feral kid in Road Warrior. This movie is just Furiosa’s take on her encounter with the road warrior.

  83. I get that we’re talking about myth and legend here. So why give us a definite timeline? I found it distracting. I spent valuable minutes trying to do the math when I could have been savoring badass grandma lines like “I killed everyone I ever met out here.”

  84. If that’s the case, Broddie, then I can’t help thinking, Furiosa should have done the opening narration. That would have been way better than having Max himself do it. Though, I suppose that would have projected a safe ending for that character. Perhaps one of the wives then.

  85. Good point about using one of the wives their Darryll. I do think the fact that Max “rides into the sunset” yet again does back up the notion that it’s a continuation of an anthology of myths. Legends about a specific character told decades after they had happened than it is a conventional chronologically sound franchise though.

  86. I’m not too concerned with how the continuity holds up from film to film. The only two that really connect in a meaningful way are the first two. The rest are just Legends of the Maxiverse, elaborate re-runs of the basic ROAD WARRIOR storyline in different settings and with slightly different storytelling goals. And that’s fine. It’s a story that doesn’t get old. What I am concerned with is the continuity within this one film. It just doesn’t seem that Max is old enough to have lived through the timeframe described by the script. It’s like when everybody harped on Black Widow for being a former KGB operative despite being six years old when the Soviet Union fell. Of course we no know that she was a child soldier but the dates still don’t really add up with what we’ve seen onscreen. But who cares because comic books.

    But I guess if FURY ROAD is supposed to be a twice told tale filtered through Furiosa’s perspective (highly doubtful considering Max’s [once again pretty problematic] narration) then maybe she made him younger and handsomer than he really was at the time to appeal to the young ladies the myth would be meant to inspire.

  87. In terms of how weathered he’s supposed to be yeah using Mel would’ve worked much better but since we all know that was impossible it doesn’t grind my gears as much as it probably should.

  88. Mr. M, I wondered the same thing about Joe’s mask.

  89. Broddie: Yeah, I ain’t mad at it. It’s just a tiny imperfection in a great film.

  90. Great movie! Great action, great cinematography, great ridiculous, over-the-top world. Just great. I don’t have a whole lot to add to what’s already been discussed. I will just point out some of my favorite things.

    Favorite action moment: fight between Max and Furiosa. Favorite car action piece: the part with the guys on the bendy poles. Favorite over-the-top detail: the Bullet Farmer having what looked like an old fashioned wig with sausage curls made from bullets. Favorite Tom Hardy grunt: “*grunt* That’s bait.” Favorite unexplained detail: “Remember me?” Favorite comeuppance: Furiosa ripping off Immortan’s Joe’s face with her mechanical arm (which I suspect he’s responsible for in some manner) while hanging off the side of a speeding, veering vehicle while her lung is slowly collapsing and she’s bleeding the fuck out!

    That brings me to say that I do not understand the talk of Theron not doing a good job. She kicked ass in all of the action, but I thought she was great in the quiet moments, too. I always prefer subtlety over mega in my acting and I thought what she was able to do with her eyes alone was fabulous.

    Two last thoughts. It would’ve been super badass had Furiosa pulled the knife out of her ribs and then slammed it back into the gearshift. And I was thinking that Max might’ve ended up on his own car when he was hanging off the side of the truck and it was right there, only to have it destroyed in a fiery death. I am pretty sure that was a deliberate tease by Miller, which makes me impressed while also thinking it was just mean.

  91. MaggieMayPie, I would have seriously rolled my eyes if he ended up in own car that way. But an after credit sequence where he returns to the scene of the crash to salvage his car would have been very welcome.

    I think the best way to view this film is without attempting to connect it to the original trilogy at all. That way lies madness indeed. Some of you may recall my rabbit hole theories regarding the OT. They don’t apply here.

  92. Max should always end up as a pedestrian but I really wanted at least one sequence where Max gets behind the wheel of something that wasn’t a lumbering big rig and teaches these warboy fuckers about real driving. It also would have meant something to see him sacrifice his beloved Interceptor to save Furiosa and the girls.

  93. The second viewing was even better than the first. And I think the 3D was even better than R(egular)D. I actually jumped to when the spears were being shot into their cab in the final chase.
    This movie really feels to me like a fantastic hybrid of The Road Warrior and a King Conan movie. At the end of Conan the Barbarian we were told that Conan would become king by his own hand, and that’s basically what Max achieves by the end of the movie (if he decided to stick around). He defeats the Mongol horde of a villain who seems comprised of bits of Thulsa Doom and Lord Humongous. These are barbarous times for the world and instead of swords and horses we witnesses exultant clashes between souped up monster machines, flamethrowers, and uzi’s, with Max outmaneuvering his opponent and overthrowing the despot.

    As for the math and timeline stuff. Some seem to think that the pockylypse happened around the time that Furiosa was kidnapped from the Green Place as a child. However, there is no reason to surmise that the pockylypse didn’t happen years earlier and that the Green Place of Furiosa’s childhood was a veritable oasis amidst the destruction, at least until the elements took care of that too.

    Hardy did a great job grunting in this role, but I think that Mel’s Max is the better performance. He really possessed a much cooler aloofness and standoffishness than Hardy’s brokenly detached Max. Both are fun to watch though.

    I really liked that the film placed some “untouchables” in the war rig to make things harder on the overwhelming forces of Joe and give our heroes a bit of an upper hand and increase the plausibility of their survival. I did think that there were a few too many guns in this world though. There’s something poetic about Max Warrioring on the road with only a few shells between him and a mace to the face.

    I loved that the gas pedal of the War Rig was that thing that measures your foot size at a shoe store.

  94. Uhm, no RJ. None of that is actually factual (as illuminated by the links in the previous post). And I unfortunately can’t return the favor and give your assertions the benefit of the “specious” label. The con your attempting is staight up dishonest. And all to typical.

  95. Majestyk- “I kept getting distracted by the math. So Furiosa was kidnaped by Joe 7000 days ago, or roughly 20 years. Which means that society must have fallen a while before that in order for everybody to forget the ways of the old world and start coming up with clan names and going on raiding parties and stuff. Say the poxyclips happened 30 years ago, which fits in with stuff Miller has said.”
    Remember too that in the climax of the first Mad Max, doesn’t Max pursue the Toecutter gang into some sort of No Man’s Land? I can’t remember the exact details, but I think there was a shot of a sign saying something along those lines. Maybe that area was all lawless and shit had cults and tribes and stuff before the Apocalypse even happened?

    Broddie- What’s the name of the prequel comic, and how was it? From what I gathered, the first one (about Nux and Immortan Joe) isn’t out till wednesday this week?

  96. Stu – It’s called MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – MAD MAX as redundant as that may sound. Issue 1 comes out in July I saw the solicits for issues 1 and 2 I’m also sure you can find them online as well. Furiosa is also getting her own series as well I think that one comes out in June.

  97. Actually Stu after a quick google search I jus now found DC’s solicits for July and one blurb from August myself. So I’ll just copy and paste and share the wealth head on (no pun).

    MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – MAD MAX #1
    Written by GEORGE MILLER, NICO LATHOURIS and MARK SEXTON
    Art by MARK SEXTON
    Cover by TOMMY LEE EDWARDS
    On sale JULY 8 • 40 pg, FC, 1 of 2, $4.99 US • MATURE READERS
    Max. The warrior Max. Haunted by his past and fated to wander the brutal Wasteland in search of his better self. To do so, Max Rockatansky enters Gastown, the only source of guzzoline for thousands of miles. Here he finds the final piece that he needs to rebuild his Interceptor – the powerful Boss 351 engine. But in order to acquire the fabled V8 in a world where car parts are worth more than a man’s life, Max must survive a gladiatorial battle in a place called…Thunderdome Plus!

    From the mind of George Miller, the creator of the Mad Max trilogy, the prelude series to the upcoming film Mad Max: Fury Road continues in its penultimate issue!

    MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – MAD MAX #2
    Written by GEORGE MILLER, NICO LATHOURIS and MARK SEXTON
    Art by MARK SEXTON
    Cover by TOMMY LEE EDWARDS
    On sale AUGUST 5 • 40 pg, FC, 2 of 2, $4.99 US • MATURE READERS
    Left for dead and his V8 Interceptor stolen, Max Rockatansky sets out to retrieve it… heading straight into the bowels of the sunken city with nothing but his sawed-off shotgun. But the stakes are much higher than the fate of Max’s ride… an innocent girl, Glory, has also been kidnapped by the depraved Buzzards. By the time Max arrives, it may already be too late…

  98. Ah, cool. I thought you meant you’d read it already. I wonder if Thunderdome Plus is officially licensed from Aunty, or if it’s more like Bellator to her UFC?

  99. Thanks, Daryll. I think a rewatch is in order.

  100. Beautiful looking movie. Great action.

    I just wish all the Max stuff was better. I thought Hardy was pretty awful, really. Inconsistent accent and characterization. More than that, he just didn’t feel at all like the same type of guy from the previous versions. Due, in large part, to many of the points Mr Majestyk made above.

    Also, did anybody else find it weirdly bloodless for an R rated Mad Max film? I also thought the last act was kind of repetitive and the big baddy’s death lacked any catharsis or sense of climax.

    Still, my mouth was hanging wide open for a good part of it, I loved the female focus, and the sheer bloody insanity of the whole thing. Looking forward to seeing it again, despite my issues with it.

  101. So umm, in the apokaliptik universe (APU), I guess we now know what really happened to Viggo’s wife when she wandered off into the forest in THE ROAD……?

    Count me on team Hardy, I think he gave a great interpretation of an iconic character, a bit less THE ROAD WARRIOR, a lot more THE ROAD/WARRIOR, and Theron was nothing short of brilliant. Like Maggie already said, she conveyed so much pain/passion/fire/resolve/love with just her eyes. Furiosa is no monster.

    FURY ROAD was the most romantic poxyliptic movie I’ve ever seen, and I’m not being sarcastic. Without entertaining those idiots who are calling this a purely feminist movie, (because they are blind idiots), I honestly got caught up in the emotional tension between Max and Furiosa, two people who probly gave up expecting anything good to come from the opposite sex. The tyranny of Immortan Joe, the stripping back of the male and female identities after the pockerlipse to their most perfunctory purposes – extracting breast milk from women like cows on a farm to sustain the men’s own lives, the fit women kept for breeding, the useful men brainwashed to be jihadist warriors for an evil dictator. I mean shit, in times like these, you can’t blame the women for hardening up and becoming warriors, protecting what’s left of their essence, like the granny who kept the bag of knick-knacks from the past. There is a lot of beauty in this film.

    I was sort of sad that Max left at the end. But I know it couldn’t have been otherwise – the legend must keep moving. I can’t wait to see it again, I know it’s only gonna get richer each time.

  102. I just can’t get my head around how it could end WITHOUT Max riding his reclaimed V8 Interceptor out into the Wasteland. I didn’t realize what a nerd/fetishist I was for that aspect of the series until I was denied it for the whole fucking movie.

  103. Mad Max: Wasteland is all about Max’s searching the desert for parts to rebuild his fuckin’ car

  104. I don’t think the child he keeps hallucinating is his daughter. Remember, he also hallucinates a black old man at one point. I think she’s a representation for one of the many people he hasn’t been able to help along the way.

  105. But doesn’t the girl shout “Help us, dad” at one point?

  106. Both times I saw it I thought it was her that called “pa” or something and convinced him to go into the salt flats and get them to turn around, but I’m open to the possibility that we heard a voice that did not belong to her and I was mistaken.

  107. There’s going to be a MAD MAX: VIDEO GAME coming in Sept. Anyone going to get that?

    Gameplay Trailer

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkcPYdD2gSo

  108. I’ve already clarified the little girl shit. It’s not his kid.

  109. Miller tweeted on Sunday that there’s “more max to come”, and then this story starts to pop up:

    http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/mad-max/35442/mad-max-5-already-has-a-title

    Fingers crossed.

  110. A high standard of jibber-jabber going on here. Good job War Boys.

    I found a link to a comprehensive presentation given by the film’s cinematographer John Seale and the 2nd Unit cinematographer David Burr. They go into great detail about their experience on the film. I think the presentation was made just at the end of the final pick-up shoots and before any post production had started. Some interesting filmatism factoids about the decision to abandon shooting in native 3D and the freedoms that entailed. Some fascinating bits about George Miller’s insistence on using the centre of the frame to aid the editors in making rapid yet comprehensible cuts also. Enjoy –

    https://vimeo.com/127381179

  111. MAD MAX: THE WASTELAND!!! Can’t wait.

  112. Take it easy, Gramps. It has not been greenlit yet

  113. Vern, your admission that you teared up just thinking about how good this movie is, made me tear up just thinking about how good it is that this movie is so good.

  114. Forget who the little girl is. What I want to know is, who the hell was talking the first time Splendid was about to snip the chain?

  115. Majestyk, I thought the sound in that part was weird too, but I concluded that she was whispering to whichever other wife it was, conspiring.

  116. Variety has a good profile of George Miller. I was amazed to read that the reshoots were the Citadel parts. He took the huge gamble of saving the beginning and ending of the movie for last since he didn’t need desert so he could shoot them in Australia. But if WB had not been convinced by his footage to give him some more time and money there would be no Citadel! The movie would make no sense.

    The article has a few claims I’m skeptical about, though, such as that Max was originally not supposed to have any dialogue and they decided to dub it in where his lips move. It’s interesting to know they did that during the action but clearly scenes like the plan to go back and when he tells her his name were filmed as planned.

    http://feature.variety.com/mad-max/#/content/article

  117. Good find Vern. I really can’t wait for the eventual making of featurette. It should be pretty mindblowing.

  118. Miller talks up the upcoming prequel comics (tip: wait ’til September and get them all in a nice hardback):

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/05/18/george-miller-mad-max-fury-road-comics-exclusive-preview/27518457/

  119. Hey smegs,

    Here’s a short write-up by the man who designed and built the awesome vehicles:

    http://jalopnik.com/how-the-man-behind-the-machines-of-mad-max-put-a-hellsc-1704037927

    When the ladies were doing the ammunition inventory there was an exchange that went something like this:

    Dark skinned Girl: We’ve only got 4 bullets for the big guy, so he’s almost useless. But we can use this little stinger 29 times.
    Blonde Girl: Like Aunty says, plant a seed and watch them die.

    Are they talking about poisoned bullets or the like? We don’t really see them in action, right?
    Also, because I want to analyse this movie like Star Wars or something, a little while later, Max takes a shot at the bullet farmer and the girl says “Only two shots left now”. Did I miss one being fired?

    Furiosa’s early war rig lieutenant reminds me of an australian Bill Murray.

  120. If they really are talking sequels, is it reasonable to ask who will play Max? I liked Hardy in the role but didn’t find him so essential that I couldn’t imagine it without him. Recasting at this point feels like a way to turn the character into a James Bond type icon, who is bigger than any one actor. That’s not really my preference, but since it’s probably too late to go back now we might as well have some fun with it. In fact, I think I’d prefer a Max with a little more of an edge to him; Hardy’s Max doesn’t have quite the same visceral intensity that Gibson’s did, so his gradual reluctant transition to helping others doesn’t feel quite as potent. I’d love it if they could get Gibson back as an older, grizzled Max, but if they’re bound and determined to go with someone young, are there any good possibilities? Hugh Jackman maybe? Maybe Sullivan Stapleton from 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE? Does he need to be Australian (I mean, Hardy isn’t, and he does an American accent for whatever reason)? Does he even need to be white?

    And also, for fuck’s sake, can we get Nick Cave in one of these movies? Seriously George, let’s not overlook that little detail.

  121. Moot question man – Hardy’s already signed on for 3 more films.

  122. Crushinator Jones

    May 19th, 2015 at 1:15 pm

    darth brooks, the bullets aren’t poisoned. This is the Wasteland. There is no real standard of medical care. If you shoot someone they are probably dead.

    This plot contrasts The Bullet Farmer (he carries and plants bullets, in his living enemies, who die) to the Vulvalini (who plant actual seeds in the world, hoping for “green things” to grow).

    I saw this on another forum, this is not my analysis but I loved it too much not to share it here: This is a movie where a guy representing War drives into a quagmire and blindly fires his guns while yelling “Justice!” before being killed by an IED. Love it.

  123. Crushinator – Nice points, but the war boys will keep coming at you, I guess that’s why she said it disdainfully.
    I have to say that this movie has planted a seed in me. I can’t stop thinking about the glorious Fury Road. I should have listened to Immorten Joe:

    “Do not become addicted to Fury Road, it will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.”

  124. Republican Cloth Coat

    May 19th, 2015 at 2:24 pm

    Majestyk: Max doesn’t believe in his own redemption, he’s making an argument to Furiosa, using her own word to get her to do what needs to be done. Maybe she’s redeemed. Maybe not. Max doesn’t stick around to find out.

  125. He does say “we,” not “you.” Maybe he’s bowing smoke up her ass, but when a guy speaks as little and as bluntly as Max does, I tend to take his words at face value. But I can see your interpretation. He just wanted her to survive (the only purpose life has), and that’s what she needed to hear to make that happen.

  126. I love that we can have a discussion this deep about this movie. This is the value in not over-explaining everything. I’ve really been enjoying reading everyone’s comments here! Keep it up!

  127. Also just want to talk about how great the costumes are in this movie. On second viewing I noticed all kinds of weird little details I missed the first time. Like the Gas Town guy with the brass nose has holes in his shirt around his nipples and nipple-rings connected by a chain and lock. And one of the henchmen attacking the war rig at the end had a baby doll’s head with bullets in its mouth embedded in the back of his helmet. I can’t wait until I have this on Blu-ray so I can pause and check out all these crazy details.

  128. RJ – “the Gas Town guy with the brass nose has holes in his shirt around his nipples and nipple-rings connected by a chain and lock.”

    Yeah and at some point he starts rubbing them which actually made me laugh pretty loudly.

  129. And the guy with the baby doll’s head on the back of his helmet was the freaky bastard who stabbed Furiosa. I have to ask, after he stabbed Furiosa he was stabbed by the bad-assly stoic dying grandma. Did she stab him in the face with a bullet?

  130. darth brooks – I believe that line was more like “So-and-so calls them anti-seeds. Plant one and watch the thing die.” It underlines the contrast between the warlords with their bullets bringing death and the women with their seeds bringing life.

  131. Darth Brooks, she TOTALLY stabs that guy in the face with a bullet. She reaches into the container of golden bullets, turns around and stabs him in the eye with that shit.

  132. Yeah, she said “anti-seed” and I believe she got the word from the old lady who was left in their chamber at the beginning, who seems to be their nanny or something.

  133. caruso_stalker217

    May 19th, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    Miss Giddy, I believe her name is, although it sounded like they were saying “Miss Kitty” to me.

    Just got back from seeing this for a second time and it was much, much better. Maybe because I revisited the first three films between viewings. I may have to upgrade this film from “Great” to whatever is better than that.

    I also noticed The People Eater tweaking his nipples this time around and it got a chuckle out of me.

  134. caruso_stalker217

    May 19th, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    And The Valkyrie is totes badass.

  135. Somebody may have mentioned this already, but there was a strange scene I really liked, it was at the mud flats after they’d cooled the engines down, Max and the girls are cruising off into the night, and there was that huge feathered creature/person on what looked like stilts striding across the horizon! And they all just gaze at it without saying a word. As though nothing could surprise them. It was a nice surreal touch.

    I also like how Max’s demons ended up saving his life during the chase on the way back to the Citadel. One of the warboyz shoots an arrow at Max’s head just as he mistook him for the girl he couldn’t save and put his hand in front of his temple, catching the arrow.

  136. What about that guy’s fat swollen feet getting a nice payoff in being used to plant the accelerator in place? Ha ha, awesome.

    I definitely liked it in spite of overhyping it to myself a little and the weird sped-up shots (never looks good. There were a few in the Avengers film as well. Why are they making a comeback?).

    I have to say, this thread has helped remind me of parts I had forgotten, and a bit that I must have missed (the guy got stabbed with a bullet??). Good work, folks.

    Like the day after a very drunken night out, there are lots of details that are slowly coming back to me. Those Birdmen. Larry and Barry, the tumours with the smiley faces. The steering wheel altar. That’s bait”. Joe promising to walk Nux to Valhalla and then about 10 seconds later dismissing him with “Mediocre!” The door used to get the tyres free from the mud being recycled as a shield.

  137. The Undefeated Gaul

    May 20th, 2015 at 4:26 am

    Maybe a stupid question, but does the name “Immortan” Joe mean anything? I’m guessing it’s a nonsense word derived from “immortal” since he’s supposed to be a God and all, and googling only gives me Fury Road articles. It kind of bothers me though… why Immortan? I guess Immortal Joe has less of a ring to it?

  138. I took as a kind of loose portmanteau of “immortal” and “important.”

  139. caruso_stalker217 – “And The Valkyrie is totes badass.”

    She was amazing. To think; that could’ve been our Wonder Woman folks.

    *sighs*

  140. The Mad Max movies always have this great way of suggesting you’re just seeing bits and pieces of a more complex society and history in the background, so I like to think that “Immortan” could be an element of the whole mythological system this guy has built around himself, like maybe there’s a whole pantheon of Immortans and he’s the one that’s come down to Earth to save humanity in this era or something. If he called himself “Immortal Joe” that would just be a straightforward way of saying he can’t die, but “Immortan” suggests a word from future English that includes the concept of immortality but also includes some extra ideas we don’t know about.

  141. Brodie: I think it’s a little early to start lamenting missed Wonder Woman opportunities when we haven’t seen a single second of footage of Gadot in character. The Valkyrie was definitely badass and certainly looked the part but she didn’t do anything as badass as Gisele scarfing herself gloriously for love with a smile on her face and pistol blazing. It’s a good thing Han only had a little while left to live because what in life can ever compete with that?

  142. *sacrificing, not scarfing

  143. caruso_stalker217

    May 20th, 2015 at 12:02 pm

    Yeah for a second there I thought you were saying that she ate herself to death.

    Also I liked the sped-up footage. All the previous MAXs used the same technique and it kinda added to the weirdness for me.

  144. I’m gonna have to look for this sped up footage next time I see it. Do you mean the speed ramping, where it slows down and then goes to regular speed? Or parts where they noticeably sped up the footage to make it seem faster (which I noticed in the previous ones, but not this)?

    Also, there were one or two people who mentioned not liking “the CGI,” and if any of you are still around, which parts did you mean? I said in the review I think the claims that they only removed safety rigs and didn’t add anything are exaggerated. It seems to me like they must’ve enhanced explosions or combined things, and the perfect trajectories of the bouncing guitar and flying steering wheel seem too good to be true in what I’ve read was a real crash of the “Doof Wagon” at the end. But I don’t know for a fact that anything besides the two-headed lizard were digital (not that it would be a bad thing if I did). So I’m curious what those people had a problem with.

    p.s.: sorry for no new review today, I’m working on another monster of a FURY ROAD related column

  145. Vern— The footage is sped up to make it seem faster. I distinctly remember it from the early-on sequence when Max is attempting to escape from the Citadel, and later [I think] as Max is fighting Furiosa, shortly after he & Nux first encounter her and the Big Rig Breeder Brigade.

    I really need to see FURY ROAD again. Something about it just didn’t click for me. Everyone else here, nearly all the critics, and the individuals I’ve spoken with in person don’t just LIKE this… they’re mostly flat-out ecstatic about it. Maybe I initially approached it in the wrong frame of mind. A second viewing certainly wouldn’t hurt.

  146. You know what I just realized while reading this review, Vern… the bone-handled knife Furiosa keeps stashed in the gear shifter? That’s her own fucking arm bone! It looks like it could be an ulna, the larger of the two bones of the forearm. Right? It has to be. Jesus Christ that’s messed up if it is, and I do hope so!!

    Man this movie was good.

  147. I hope so too but it looks like a sboulder bone and she didn’t lose one of those. It does look a little big to come from Theron’s forearm.

  148. In regards to the CGI thing, you can see 18 minutes of behind the scenes b-roll on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hatTUJT0Kxg

    It seems like they used a green screen mainly for the final set piece on the rig, and with so many of them doing their own stunts and climbing around and all that, it doesn’t surprise me. Some good explosions in there as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were digitally enhanced in the film though. I mean, the quoted figure is 85% practical effects. 15% being CGI is still a good chunk. I didn’t really notice it all though so I’m not complaining. The CGI was still less noticeable than it is in nearly every other blockbuster.

  149. I’m sure the long shots of the sandstorm were CGI. They looked awesome, though.

  150. The only CGI usage I didn’t like was that phony “WHOAAAA LIKE HOW 3D THIS GUITAR IS THO” shot from the climax. A lot of the effects are thought were really good, from the minor stuff like Furiosa’s arm to the big stuff like the giant sandstorm that would obviously be impossible in real life. The “James Cameron Blue Tint Night Zone” effect is of course digital correction as well. They use digital effects to augment the film, but its real trucks getting smashed, real explosions going on, real dudes on poles and Hardy hanging upside down.

    Its a tool like anything else.

  151. Vern, there are lots of little speed effects but most of them are subtle — I agree, less noticeable than in the earlier Max films. I’m pretty sure there’s a couple of sped up shots during the footchase/Max’s escape at the beginning. There’s a really noticeable speed ramp when Imortan Joe makes eye contact with Nux. And there’s a subtle speed ramp when Max loads Furiosa’s gun for her when they are taking on the bikers (you can see that one around the 50 second mark in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRpPOiP6TRM). I’m sure there are more but those are some that spring to mind. I think they’re great.

  152. This year has taught us that the FAST AND FURIOUS and MAD MAX franchises are movies we just want to watch over and over again full time. Are there any other franchises that have this impact? Even the DIE HARD movies don’t after the first one. I may do a run of them but then I’m good. I don’t feel like watching them all again right away.

    I would say the James Bond franchise qualifies but since there are more than 20 I rarely get through all of them once. I’d say BACK TO THE FUTURE does. Too bad there are only three of those, and this being the actual 2015.

    Possibly ALIEN but I don’t think I’ve ever double watched any of those within a month. Any others?

  153. LETHAL WEAPON series

  154. There’s CGI all over the movie, most notably at the beginning, going from the lizard via the composited shots of the girl being chased/run over right into the vague fakeness of the Citadel.

    Of course I don’t know how much of that place actually exists (I’m assuming the forecourt and the interiors only), but I’d say it’s pretty obvious that the wide shots are mattes, if you want to call ’em that. Miller shot that stuff in Australia after principal photography in Namibia had wrapped, so any exteriors would have had to be fabricated somehow.

    Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty convinced that neither the water gushing out of the walls nor the weird giant winch/lift thing being operated by the war boys were fully “real”. The lift especially looked oddly artificial, down to the fake counterweights going up as the rig comes down.

    I should also say that none of that changes the quality of the film for me. It’s still good, and I’m sure that expecting a greater lack of CGI in a modern blockbuster is pointless. It’s just that, having recently re-watched all three of the old, practical Maxes, the plastic sheen of some of the new stuff took me out of the experience for an instant.

    (I loved that Miller included that “bulging eyes” bit from the very first Max that accompanies both Toecutter’s and the Nightrider’s death. It’s only in there for a second, but it’s a nice callback)

  155. Fred— I agree with Shoot about the LETHAL WEAPON series, although the “Pet Frog Froggie” soliloquy by Joe Pesci 1) brings an otherwise peppy movie to a dead halt, and 2.) may well have bungholed any future Pesci had as a future respected thespian.

    Sans Martin Scorcese’s expert tutelage, it was an uphill struggle.

  156. I can rewatch the first two Dusk Till Dawn movies at almost any time, but not the third.

  157. I thought that almost all of Max’s attempted escaper from the Citadel, and his fight with Furiosa was sped up? It certainly seemed that way to me. I also thought that some of the fire plumes looked CGI, from Doof’s guitar and various vehicle exhausts.

  158. SPOILERS AHOY!

    Firstly, amazing review Vern. I just got back from the theatre after (finally) having a night off to see it and while the film does indeed have problems (the cheesy aesthetics of Max’s flashbacks, some questionable composite shots, the occasional clunky verbal exposition preceding some of the actions scenes to reinforce who is going where and for what purpose being a few) if those are the shallow lows that I needed to deal with in order to enjoy the nosebleed-altitude heights that this film reaches then so be it.

    During the final chase sequence I could not believe how invested and immersed I was in what was occurring narratively, thematically and emotionally while also being continuously rendered jaw-dropped by the sheer scale and inventiveness of the action on screen. People have already described the many details and set-ups / pay-offs that help to make this movie a constant joy far better than I could but I would just like to add that any movie where a scene in which one main character fights a deformed wasteland guitarist atop an absurd speaker stack is intercut with another main character engaged in one of the most badass and cathartic battles towards, and systematic dispatching of, the main villain in action history – with the first scene being gleefully outrageous and the second being genuinely victorious and emotional – and have neither sequence diminish the power of the other is a fucking cinematic miracle. Which FURY ROAD really is.

    I cannot wait to see this film again and again for as many years as I am alive to enjoy it. I honestly have a lump in my throat thinking about the sheer audacity of even attempting to make a film on this scale with this much idiosyncrasy, and then of how much of an unmitigated success that gamble turned out to be.

  159. Goddammit. I forgot the rule: “Never, EVER, read the comments.” I figured, it’s Outlaw Vern’s sight! All will be cool!

    So obviously one of the first five comments is somebody saying it’s inert. And it pissed me off, and I don’t come here to be pissed off. Differences of opinion are fine, that’s what makes us all such beautiful and unique snowflakes, right? Pretty sure that’s what Tyler Durden meant or maybe I could have misread that somehow but the point is, I figured the place where everybody would congregate to praise something so special, something we don’t get nearly often enough, would be here. It would be awesome and we could rejoice in the excellence.

    Nope. Some dude named Amazing Larry wants to tell everybody that we’re stupid and wrong and there’s no fucking clothes and screw this, no more comments for me.

  160. I think some of the shots you guys are identifying as being sped up are actually just a reduced shutter angle effect (probably called something different with digital cameras) – the chase at the beginning uses the reduced shutter a lot, which gives it a jittery, jumpy feel similar to when a shot is sped up in post…

  161. Trust me, Albert. Not agreeing with Amazing Larry is a good thing.

    And if one dissenting comment out of 160 (which he kind of walked back later in the thread) sends you screaming from the internet, you need some thicker skin, man. There’s nothing that ever was or ever will be that everyone loves. And that’s good. The comments that got the best discussion going were the ones that offer up some criticism and not just compliments. A real piece of art can take whatever shit you want to fling at it. You want nothing but positivity, read the back of the Blu-ray.

  162. But do you watch all four LETHAL WEAPONS and then immediately feel the need to watch them again? That’s what I’ve found with the MAD MAXes. I’ve already seen Road Warrior twice and Fury Road three times in the last two months and I’m already due for a Thunderdome rewatch.

  163. Between this film and the mountain top sequence in F7 2015 might be the best if not one of the greatest years in the history of cinema for vehicular action. That sounds like hyperbola but I would be curious if any of you guys could think of another year where you had the quality of amazing driving action sequences we have witnessed between the two films.

  164. Saw it again today. Loved picking up on stuff I missed the first time around, like the possibility that Max kinda had a psychic warning of the bit with the crossbow bolt, and that the Bullet Farmer (real name: Lieutenant Kalashnikov) had actual bullets as teeth. I also have “Brother in Arms”, the track from the canyon/biker chase scene stuck in my head. It’s great how its use of strings can be at the same pace and intensity for most of it, but the level/layering of it creates different tones. Like the DAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAH! is “Oh shit, Joe’s catching up!”, but the softer dahnahnahnahnahnahnahnahnahnah(nahNahhNaaahhhh) over Max and Furiosa fighting off the bikers is more hopeful and works well of them becoming more in sync with each other as they work together.

    I also read the Nux and Immortan Joe issue of the prequel comic. Pretty good tie-in for the movie, giving you the story of how Nux became a War Boy and Joe’s rise to power. The first is shorter and pretty straightforward, but good, and the second is a good action story telling you more about Joe and how The Citadel was created without demystifying him too much. It helps that they never got pre-apocalypse with it. It’s actually after “The Oil War” and “The Water War” and you see post-War Sydney again briefly. Plus while Joe’s overall still a pretty ruthless villain, his motivations are explained a little more and you know why the wives are important for him when he’s already got sons.

  165. The Immortan Joe comic was kind of a disappointment. Joe’s backstory really isn’t that interesting.

    I’m very interested in learning more about this character named ‘Glory’, though. I guess she’s Max’s adopted daughter. She’s part of two of my favorite scenes in the movie:
    1. Max deciding to go ALL-IN after hearing her say “Come on, pa! Let’s go!”
    2. The arrow through the hand gag

  166. caruso_stalker217

    May 21st, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    The “Come on, pa!” moment really hit me on the second viewing. That whole sequence is pretty badass overall with the Max/Furiosa epic handshake and all.

  167. Fred- I usually never feel compelled to rewatch films immediately even if they are my favourites. They are movies I keep coming back to is I believe the closest to an answer

  168. Hey, guys. Not posted on here in some time, but I’ve still been keepin’ up with the Vernage going on. This really was a masterpiece, IMO.

    In fact, I’d love to share with you folks a new music video I made paying tribute to the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoQPDAETP8k

  169. The Undefeated Gaul

    May 22nd, 2015 at 1:13 am

    Does the prequel comic explain the “Immortan” part of the name?

  170. *SPOILERS* I too had a “like not love” feeling when i left the theatre, probably from the over-hyping, but the little things you guys point out make me want to see it again (and probably in 3D next time). ex) I was wondering why the fanboy contingent screaming bloody murder at the transfusion at the end of Star Trek Into Darkness (or crying about the compatibility of heart donors in Terminator Salvation) was staying quiet on the transfusion here. Then someone here points out the back tattoo literally spells out for us that Max has the universal donor blood type. Man, Miller really does cover his bases! Also didn’t think the “feminism” here was any more pronounced than say, other female revenge-with-a-man’s-help movies, i.e. The Quick and the Dead/The Specialist, but the observations about characters choosing when to be used as props, the bullet farmer vs. the real farmers, etc.. shows how much time and care Miller put into crafting this thing.

    There’s a few problems here and there (I didn’t like his narration or the hallucinations either, I thought Nux and the wife’s romance/friendship was a bit too rushed, don’t like how the Citadel looks like something straight out of John Carter). Saying Max is sidelined is a little harsh, but the sad truth is his character doesn’t do anything physically that we wouldn’t buy a 50-ish year old Gibson doing. Just makes me wish they took a chance and made it with Mel, but oh well. Hardy is alright but it’s kind of distracting when he seems to be doing a perfect Mad Max impression in one scene and then acting like a completely different person in another. Also I don’t think Immortan Joe and Max even meet or have a scene together, but then again I don’t think he ever met Humungous in part 2 either.

    One thing that is definitely not a complaint – Furiosa is amazing. She’s tough, badass, yet immensely likable in a way that the Beckinsales and Jovoviches (and even Theron herself in Aeon Flux) couldn’t pull off. She’s clever and brave and never gives up, and incredibly sexy without ever showing any skin. And am I insane in actually WANTING her to get with Max at the end? I’m sure that’s sacrilege (especially since I’m one of the few who DIDN’T like the kiss in Edge of Tomorrow) but I really felt these two characters were meant for each other.

    Oh yeah, Vern is unfortunately right that kids who watch this movie first will absolutely hate the action in the original trilogy. I just rewatched them this week and the action is so far and away better here, it makes the originals look like a college short film/demo to get funding for this one. I love Thunderdome but that last chase where all the train-jumping is from low/cheating angles is downright embarrassing compared to the stuff here.

  171. Oh one more thing I loved that Telf brought up (albeit in a negative way) – I wouldn’t say it’s bloodless, but I really appreciated the restraint of Miller here (weird to say about a movie with a flaming guitar). So many directors like Bay would have lingered on those crushed bodies and shown decapitated heads like in Bad Boys II.. and you know Peter Jackson would have made sure every flying body bounced off of about 20 things before hitting the ground. But Miller’s not about that – the movie’s kind of tame for an R rating but it doesn’t need to be anything more. The violence is powerful and hard hitting without being sadistic; Miller knows at the end of the day this is high adventure in the classic Hollywood tradition – he keeps it fun and exciting; it’s supposed to put a smile on our faces (and the ending is definitely one of the most feel good endings in a while).

    *Miller also knows better than to pull a Rodriguez and have like 5 scenes where Immortan Joe shoots a lackey in the head or some shit. (If Joe actually kills anyone this whole movie I don’t remember it). He doesn’t need to use such cheap-seat tactics to get us invested in the story.

  172. One of my favorite aspects of the movie is the partnership between Max and Furiosa. There’s such a sweet, mutual respect between them at the end. They are portrayed as true equals. I honestly don’t think that quality would be there had Mel Gibson reprised his role and the main problem would be his age. My first instinct is to compare that would-be scenario to Roger Moore and his much younger love interests in his Bond movies, but I’m not sure that’s either fair or accurate, seeing as the Max-Furiosa relationship is non-sexual. But that’s where my mind goes anyway.

    Anyway, seeing as Immortan Joe, an old white guy, represents the patriarchy in the film, I think having an old Max would confuse that aspect. Maybe I’m rambling and this makes no sense, but what I’m saying is I really like Tom Hardy in the role.

  173. Can we take a minute and acknowledge that the internet is sometimes a wonderful place?

    https://youtu.be/NAxFjVCkpRY

  174. The Undefeated Gaul- No. Well, not why it’s specifically become that. When he gets the name, it starts off as his men chanting “Immorta”(no L) at him, so I guess the n just got added over time.

  175. Could Max be feral boy all grown up? The little music box thing shows up from somewhere and he sort of seems to choose his name when he says “Max…my name is Max…grunt”. Also, he had trouble talking in the beginning and grunts A LOT.

    Small quibble with the movie and review. I really don’t like that our heroes have to have something to say to the villain before they do them in. “Remember me?” was especially egregious. She was one of his main lieutenants, she was the inciting incident for the movie, and he’s just spent days and countless resources chasing her down. I think he has a clue who she may be.

  176. caruso_stalker217

    May 22nd, 2015 at 8:14 pm

    neal2zod:

    I really can’t get behind comparing this film to THE QUICK AND THE DEAD which has probably the absolute worst protagonist in the history of film. Not the worst protagonist in a western mind you, or even action films in general, but of any film ever made.

    And I’m a fan of THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, but that move was just screaming to have Bruce Campbell in the lead.

  177. SPOILERS

    Darth – I think the ‘Remember me?’ line might be a little more complex and open to interpretation than you are giving it credit for, considering Furiosa’s unseen arc over those 7000 days since she had been kidnapped. I don’t think that she is asking Joe if he literally recognises her on a superficial level, the way you might do if you bumped into a friend you hadn’t seen for a while, but rather she is asking if he remembers the *person* that she was before whatever atrocities befell her during those 7000 days in The Citadel led her to becoming his imperator. And if that’s the case, that for me makes the question incredibly powerful, because it seems that it has been only recently that Furiosa has rediscovered. There are a whole bunch of other levels it works on too if that is one of the ways it’s interpreted.

    That’s the way I read it anyway and I found that moment, combined with her
    dying struggle to physically reach Joe to ask him that question, to be the emotional high-point of the film. It also reflects the War Boys “Witness me!” declaration before martyring themselves, and considering Joe’s espousment of an afterlife in Valhalla for those who sacrifice themselves in combat, Furiosa’s line could also be working on that level at the same time, with Furiosa pretty much saying “I hope there is an afterlife motherfucker so you can remember me tearing your goddamn face off for eternity.”

    This movie is so fuckin’ great.

  178. *rediscovered herself

  179. Yeah, I like the “Remember me?” line because it *has* to have some undisclosed meaning for it to make sense. One possible interpretation: long ago Furiosa fought against Joe, but he beat her down and forced her into servitude. Now that angry fighter is back for the kill.

    Another one: Joe did not know that the Furiosa who rose through the ranks to become Imperator was the kidnapped girl who he had done something to long ago. Now she wants him to remember as she kills him.

    I don’t know if that makes sense. But it must mean something. It’s cryptic. I like that.

  180. Vern, I hadn’t thought of either of those possibilites you mentioned but they are both fantastic interpretations. Man, this movie just keeps on giving and giving.

  181. Hey Vern,

    The speeding-up-the-action thing is visible in this clip from about 1min15secs in, the Max vs Furiosa fight:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibouAxhX-E

    And it is worth noting, this is a small small small tiny little quibble in a great film, but I did keep noticing them. It’s a technique that I don’t really get. There’s a really weird example in Heat where, in the middle of one of the best directed gunfights I’ve ever seen, there’s this weird couple of shoots of DeNiro helping Kilmer up that look like a cartoon.

    Maybe the problem I have with it is that I grew up in the UK and just associate the technique with Benny Hill.

  182. Just got back from viewing number 2. This time with recliner chairs. I decided on dbox 3D for viewing number 3 and IMAX 3D for my final viewing until I get the movie on home video.

  183. Stu – Just read it myself. One cool revelation about the wastelands was that wordburgers are shared by history men and women who happen to literally have thousands of words tattooed on their skin. Made Ms. Giddy’s overall purpose a lot more clearer during my second viewing of the movie.

  184. The way I heard it, she didn’t ASK him if he remembered her. It’s a command: “Remember me [in whatever shithole you wind up after I end your life]!”. The context that makes it badass is Joe’s promises of Valhalla. Even if it wasn’t a lie and he has some legendary rebirth awaiting him, it is now tarnished by Furiosa’s vengeance spirit.

  185. The Original Paul

    May 24th, 2015 at 7:53 am

    I’VE JUST SEEN FURY ROAD!!!

    …And my fucking tinitus has come back. Yuck. Once again I am reminded of why I don’t like seeing movies in multiplexes. This fucker was way, way, way, way, way too loud. Like hearing-damaging loud. I need a t-shirt that says “I just saw Mad Max in the cinema, and all I got was this lousy ringing in my ears.”

    So I saw it in 2D, because I think everyone who’s read my stuff knows my history with 3D; and if the movie was this damn good, I didn’t want to spoil it for myself by giving myself a migraine five minutes in. (I needn’t have worried… the cinema volume settings did that for me instead.) But setting aside HOW I saw it, the question has to be asked: how was it?

    Well I think it has a legit claim to have some of the best action ever. Certainly over the last decade or so. Is it the best action movie? – I’d have to say no. But I had a blast with it (tinitus not withstanding) anyway.

    It brings up an old question: if a movie succeeds utterly on its own terms, is it really fair to criticise it for lacking other qualities that you may have wanted? FURY ROAD clearly has a pretty narrow scope. It wants to deliver great action, some stunning cinematography, a… good… score? (Ok, I thought that this was a little overdone at times, but what orchestral score isn’t? It certainly didn’t spoil the movie.) And as far as that goes, it succeeds fantastically. I loved some of the little character moments that Vern mentions. The main characters on the other hand… honestly, I couldn’t have given a crap about any of them. I’ve seen all of these characters before, I don’t think there’s anything original about them, I wasn’t particularly invested in their plight. I’d like to see this in the same conditions as I saw THE LAST STAND and see if they resonated more with me. I’d also like to see it in a setting where I don’t have the constant worry of going permanently deaf.

    To me this was a damn near perfect rollercoaster movie. It’s a thrill ride, not an emotional experience. The action was coherent enough, the world-building strong enough and there were enough little touches and character moments for it to keep me hooked for most of the film’s running time. I would’ve liked to have gotten more out of it than that, but I can’t complain about what I did get.

  186. Nabroleon Dynamite

    May 24th, 2015 at 9:20 am

    Going today. Not a big Mad Max fan, really only fuck with The Road Warrior and The Tina Turner Song.

    I’m expecting a good action flick and not to be blown away.

    My only question is should I set it off in 2D or 3D?

    I’m leaning on 3D since I’ll most likely buy the blu ray but if the last 3D movie I saw was Monster’s University and that was a waste of doe.

  187. Nabroleon Dynamite

    May 24th, 2015 at 9:23 am

    ^^ ignore the *if*. The *if* post bombed me.

  188. My theory on “Remember me?”:

    I think she’s asking Joe if he remembers the DEFIANT version of Furiosa. The VULVANI are warriors and Furiosa was probably in her early teens when she was taken, so odds are she resisted and put up a fight before eventually being broken by Joe. Maybe Joe was the one who took her arm?

  189. The Original Paul

    May 24th, 2015 at 1:38 pm

    I’m gonna add to what I wrote above: if Gareth Evans and George Miller somehow managed to have a baby together, it might very well produce the best action movie ever made. (THE RAID 2 would be it, if it didn’t manage to make a fight scene involving human typhoon Yayan Ruhian basically incomprehensible to the viewer through sheer misuse of shakycam and quick edits.) Basically I want the strong leads, story and ending of THE RAID 2 coupled with the awesome action direction of FURY ROAD.

    Yep, that’s a recipe for the best action film ever made, right there.

  190. The Original Paul

    May 24th, 2015 at 1:45 pm

    Nabroleon – IMO you’ll at least get what you’re expecting, if what you’re expecting is “a good action flick”. At the very least FURY ROAD is a very good action flick.

    As for the 2D vs 3D question, I am and probably always will be on the side of 2D, unless they get 3D technology to the point at which it’s not distracting and doesn’t give you dull thudding pains between your eyes after 30 seconds of use. I guess that if you don’t find 3D as intolerable as I do, you might get something out of it. Personally I thought the film looked great in 2D, but others have said that the 3D does add something. Take your pick I guess.

  191. I loved this one and completely agree that it is on par with T2 and Aliens. I loved Charlize Theron in this and how even though Max’s name is on the title, she was the most prominent and capable protagonist (of course at one point she had to be saved by a man in the end but that’s me nit picking). Tom Hardy, great actor, knowing in which film to amp it up and in which film not (no mega acting from Hardy, oh no). And how come he is the one looking above from a crowd shot? (It brought Batman to my mind).

  192. As much as I enjoyed it, I kinda wish it hadn’t been a MAD MAX movie but the beginning of a new trilogy set in the MAD MAX universe. Since Miller couldn’t get the real Max, and he had a good protagonist to replace him, and it seems like he intends to bring her back for sequels, I honestly I would have liked a FURIOSA trilogy better than more MAD MAX episodes. Tom Hardy is a fine actor, but he talks too much and looks too young. I know it’s nitpicking, I know we should just be happy that some people are still willing to put a lot of effort into making an amazing action movie rather than just go the “It’s not supposed to be Shakespeare, it’s just supposed to be shaky” route, I know the movie’s not exactly supposed to be realistic, I know Miller likes to fuck with logic and continuity, I know you can always imagine that Furiosa is one of the kids from the plane crash from THUNDERDOME and Hardy is just the ghost of the long dead Road Warrior who inspires her to fight, but still, I don’t know, like Majestyk said, I just found it too distracting to think that babyface Tom Hardy was portraying a man who should normally be in his 50s or 60s considering the age of the other actors and the fact that this whole new civilization can’t possibly be only like 5 years old.

  193. By the way, no-one else seems to have mentioned the shot from Mad Max half way through one of the chases. It is the Toecutter’s eyes coming out of his face shot before he goes under the lorry. It appears in a flash and if you blink you miss it. This means that Mad Max Fury Road cannot be any sort of re-imagining and has to be considered canon to the original series.

    However interpreted, Fury Road is amazing. I saw Mad Max 2 on its original cinema release (I live in the UK) and it was the first X certificate (UK rating system at the time) I saw at the cinema (when I was 13!). With Fury Road I took my adult son who told me at the end it was both:
    A) THE BEST ACTION FILM HE HAS EVER SEEN
    B) THE MOST BEAUTIFULLY SHOT FILM HE HAS EVER SEEN.

    My response – Not as violent as Mad Max 2! But still amazing.

  194. Watched this once in 3D and once in 2D. While I’m glad to have seen the 3D, I preferred 2D. Mostly because of the brightness and being able to track everything that was going on (as others have mentioned already).

    As far as what people are saying about continuity, I’ve often felt that the events of the first movie occurred after the poxyclipse. The whole place had this feel of people desperately trying to hold on to civilization, but only just, and surrounded on all sides by a deteriorating society. There’s the road sign warning about the dangers of beyond, people talking about the need for heroes, a police force that obviously couldn’t patrol every town and village. Max may have remembered the world before the collapse (if he was a boy at the time) but would still have been the right age to be a cop while the world was still partially held together.

    I’m liking the idea, though, of these movies being mainly a series of myths gathered during a violent time. The old Greek myths didn’t always agree with each other, either.

    In any case, I easily loved this movie just as much as those that came before. Looking forward to the comics and any possible sequels.

  195. I don’t get hung up on the continuity stuff. The movie works and Miller & Hardy have said that the movie is more of a revisit/relaunch.

    Tom Hardy said:

    “We have to take it differently as George is taking it. It’s a relaunch and revisit to the world. An entire restructuring. That’s not to say that it’s not picking up or leaving off from the Mad Max you know already, but it’s a nice re-take on the entire world using the same character, depositing him in the same world but bringing him up to date by 30 years.”

    Miller said at SXSW this year:

    “It’s sort of a revisit. The [previous] three films exist in no real clear chronology, because they were always conceived as different films.”

    And as for Hardy in the Max role, I really liked what he did with the part. He’s not as relaxed & together as Road Warrior Max or Thunderdome Max. Fury Road Max seems like a man who’s been isolated for a long time and is nearly insane. I like Mel and I’m sure he would have done a good job, but I think Hardy’s one of the most interesting actors working today.

  196. Just got back from my second viewing of the film.

    A couple of thoughts:

    – Considering Joe and co. at the Citadel seem to have good working knowledge of horticulture/hydroponics and green-energy (wind-power generators on the “roofs” of the place), shouldn’t they be smart enough to forgo guzzoline and simply go electric with their rides? How about some solar cells? In the Wasteland, the sun always shines, right? Admittedly, they probably wouldn’t be as intimidating if they came zipping over the dunes to the sound of softly keening e-engines. Messes with the image.

    – Max chewing down that unfortunate lizard excepted, do we ever actually see anyone eat anything in the movie? I think the canyon-crew in their downtime, watching the war rig return are cooking something in a pot, but there’s no guessing what it actually is. Oh yeah, and Nux pops the bug, in the rig. But apart from that? What do they subsist on? Bartertown at least had plenty of pigs. I think Toast mentions crops as they discuss heading back to the Citadel, but there’s gotta be some other sort of nourishment considering the girth of the milk-givers and Joe himself. Am I over-thinking this?

    By the way, I made another one of my Max prequel illustrations, showing what could’ve been had Gibbo passed the baton instead of being replaced. You can find that here: http://zehpeh-two.tumblr.com/post/119943613976/road-warriors-ink-acrylics-digital-2015-a

  197. Yeah it’s kind of funny that the “wives”, who are supposed to be the healthiest people in the wasteland, are the only ones who don’t look well-fed.

  198. Well, also those crowds of people scrambling for water.

  199. Interesting little article on the editing style of Fury Road. Vern, I think you’ll appreciate this.

    http://vashivisuals.com/the-editing-of-mad-max-fury-road/

  200. This article answers a lot of our questions about the use of computers. Looks like it was lots of compositing.

    http://gizmodo.com/these-before-and-after-comparisons-make-me-love-fury-ro-1708036346

  201. I can’t fuckig wait for this movie to start getting ripped off.

  202. If I’d had my own set of keys I’d have gotten out of that theater after the first 45 numbing minutes of chase scene.

    As it was, I just waited till it was done with the other 4 people.

  203. Jon, are saying you were locked in?

  204. I still haven’t seen it and I’m so close to miss its main theatrical run. I really try next week to visit one of my 1-hour-trainride-away-big-city-multiplexes to catch a showing at a good time, but I’m afraid if I can’t make it, I have to hate for home video and will hate myself forever.

  205. The Original Paul

    June 7th, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    CJ – just don’t make the same mistake as I did and go to a cinema which has a history of playing the sound way too loud. I have a feeling that I might have been able to appreciate the movie a lot more if it wasn’t for that.

  206. Well, I’m about to see it at a multiplex that calls its sound system “Maxximum Sound”, which now scares me a bit.

  207. Another great article on the visual effects. They actually had 2000 VFX shots in this film! Way more than I would have expected. I’m pretty sure that’s more than half the shots.

    http://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-graphic-tale-the-visual-effects-of-mad-max-fury-road/

  208. So I just watched it in a super air conditioned movie theatre, projected digitally in 2D 4K with Maxximum Sound, while sitting on a premium leather chair* and I loved it. The movie. Not just the theatre. But I really got nothing to add. Sorry, being late. (Maybe an observation on the “feminist angle”, but I think we are all tired of discussing it.)

    *I’ve been to that certain multiplex for the first time ever and man, it is so great, it ruined my normal movie theatre for me!

  209. Double Feature:

    APOCALYPTO

    &

    MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

    To be played in a perpetual loop until alien conquistadors come creeping to our shore.

  210. It’s kinda depressing that I wanted to watch this in DBOX 3D last week but couldn’t because AMC booked some movie called SPY in that theater instead last weekend. Then this weekend it was reserved for JURASSIC WORLD. Damn.

  211. This move was amazing. Now if we can just get $100 mill and John Milius for that new Conan movie…

  212. Saw it for the third time yester(lovely)day. This movie keeps getting better every time I see it as I’m able to take the story as given and find more little details.

    Things I noticed this time:

    • The thing that makes Splendid fall is that her foot is slippery with blood from where Max shot her. Whether he’s able to sees from his vantage point is debatable, but his reaction show awareness thats he is somewhat culpable in her death. It’s a cool piece of subtle setup/payoff that made the scene more meaningful for me this time.

    • Maybe everybody else always notices this, but the branding on Nux’s chest is an engine.

    • I found myself way more affected by Nux’s story in general this time. I was moved that the greatest reward he could think of for retrieving the girls was to be allowed to drive the War Rig, and he gets to ride it right into Valhalla. His final, sad little “Witness me” was great. This guy who just a day or two earlier had been champing at the bit to martyr himself because of the toxic fatalism he’d been fed all his life was now nobly sacrificing himself for a truly worthy cause, but there’s no joy in it for him because he finally has a reason to live.

    • This time, I didn’t hear Furiosa’s much-debated one-liner to Joe as a question. It sounded like an order. Like, “Wherever you’re going after this, asshole, never forget who sent you there.” That’s way more fucking badass.

    Serious question: I know It’s Not Supposed To Win Oscars (Except For Sound Design), but why shouldn’t it? Has there been or is there likely to be a more complete piece of filmmaking this year? But of course it won’t, but it would be nice to have a reason to watch the ceremony next year.

    In conclusion, I’ve started to view everybody who chose to see another movie instead of this one as the enemy. I got a friend who gets the chance to see maybe one movie a year that’s not a kids flick and he says he’s planning to see the fuckin’ POLTERGEIST remake because “I loved that movie as a kid.” Mediocre.

  213. Ha, I got the sound design reference!

    Since it came out, the movie was the topic of some serious Oscar talk and honestly, I think its chances of getting nominated for THE Oscars are good, but of course not THAT good. What it has going for it:

    – It’s one of the best reviewed movies of the year,
    – It’s an achievment in filmmaking, that is hard to ignore,
    – The heavily discussed feminist angle might give the movie some extra importance,
    – The last few months the Academy discussed going back to 5 Best Picture nominations again, but decided against it and they probably remembered that they expanded the category to 10, to include more crowd pleasers and get the internet generation to watch their crusty broadcast again,

    But what speaks against it:

    – The Academy doesn’t care for crowd pleasers,
    – Gay rights stole feminism’s thunder, so maybe they are more focusing on this to prove, that “homophobia doesn’t exist anymore”, now that gay marriage is finally legal,
    – Come on, who are we kidding? Action movies don’t get anything else than technical nods!
    – The Academy ignored some even better reviewed movies before,

    Personally I think its biggest chance of getting recognized in the “important” categories, is one for George Miller as best director, with a big fat MAYBE BUT WE KNOW IT WON’T HAPPEN for Nicholas Hoult as supporting actor. (But if it gets any acting nods, they will most likely nominate Charlize Theron, because she is already established and plays a “feminist icon”.)
    There also has been some talk about this being the movie, that makes the academy FINALLY introduce the stunt category, but we all know that will never ever happen. But I still think it MIGHT end up being the most nominated movie of the year, just because it’s pretty much a lock in cinematography, editing, sound mixing, sound editing, make up, art direction and maybe costume design (if they don’t have enough period pictures to pick from), visual FX (they will probably pick something more show offy) and score. (Will they play A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION if Junkie XL wins?)

    But in the end who cares, right?

  214. I’ve been thinking about the Oscar thing too. It seems more likely to get a token nod or few nods and be disappointing, but I don’t know. I can also see it getting some genuine respect. It’s hard to say. I am positive I won’t see a movie this year that I feel is more deserving of best picture, but for some reason the one I’m really hoping for is best actress for Theron. I wouldn’t even entertain the notion if she hadn’t won one before, which seems to make people more nominatable. But I think it’s one of those great performances up there with Sigourney in ALIENS (which actually was nominated, but that was a different time).

    CJ, that’s a pretty cynical view there! While obviously politics play into what movies feel “important” I don’t think the Academy decide as a body “we’re gonna do homophobia this year, not feminism.” And what homophobia movies are there? Also, when has the Academy ever pushed for movies about feminism? And do you really think that most people see FURY ROAD and just think of its politics and not its fucking thrilling *every single other thing*? I think that’s mainly the attitude of non-movie-loving essayists.

    Majestyk, good catch on the bloody foot. I didn’t pick up on that in 5 viewings.

  215. The Original Paul

    June 29th, 2015 at 7:49 am

    Does this movie really need validation from a lot of stuffy old white men at some awards ceremony that nobody gives a rat’s ass about? My (admittedly cynical) viewpoint is that they exist for two reasons, and two reasons only: 1) to build “hype” for their sponsors and participants, and 2) to increase the “bankability” of the Hollywood elite. In other words, it’s all about the Benjamins baby. It’s been years since I’ve watched the Oscars. I couldn’t tell you who won “best picture” last year, and I doubt many of the moviegoing public could either.

    Seriously… the critics really liked it, the public really liked it, even I really liked it. (It is seriously fucking insane that FURY ROAD pretty much has a lock for my “worst moviegoing experience of 2015”, should such a thing exist. And that title has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the film, and everything to do with the quality of the cinema. Fuck the Odeon, man.) This thing has a legion of defenders when it comes to the more politicised discussions, which not many movies do. Isn’t all of that enough?

  216. The Original Paul

    June 29th, 2015 at 7:51 am

    And on a completely separate topic that (barely) touches what’s being discussed here: you guys in the US now have legalised gay marriage written into law, it seems. Congrats on joining the 21st century guys.

  217. It’s not like I think it needs validation. It’s just that just this once it would be cool if me and the supposed gatekeepers of cinematic quality agreed on something.

    That’s a lot of condescension coming from a guy who lives in a country an eighth the size and population and diversity of the U.S. that still only managed to legalize gay marriage all of a year and a half ago.

  218. The Original Paul

    June 29th, 2015 at 8:50 am

    No condescention meant, Mr M. You guys have such a huge effect on the world’s media that it’s genuinely good for the rest of us when something like this happens. More than anything, though, I’m just glad that you guys have a little more confirmation written into law that people should be judged on their actions, not their genitalia. That probably shouldn’t be a big deal, but I kinda feel as though it is, especially when it comes to how you’re perceived by the rest of the world. (I can’t speak for the entire rest of the world here, of course, but I’m still happy to see this happen.)

    And don’t think of me as a Britisher. Think of me as a wannabe Dutch or Portugese bloke, especially after the last election. I’m a liberal who’s just witnessed the death of left-wing politics in the UK. I feel like the last sane man in the land of the crazies.

  219. I admit, I was half joking in terms of the “importance” and the “feminism Vs gay rights” things. HALF joking, because I can imagine some studio people pushing for the feminist angle, to get award recognition. Kinda how like some studio people tried to get THE NUTTY PROFESSOR a BEST PICTURE nod, for its “satirical take on body cult” or something like that. Only that in FURY ROAD’s case, this might actually work. And frankly, I can see how some of the voters, who would never watch an action film “about exploding cars” need this kind of push into the “Hey, it actually has something to say” area.

    (And I don’t know, wasn’t there just recently a gay rights movie with Mark Ruffalo?)

  220. The Original Paul

    June 29th, 2015 at 9:17 am

    And added to what I last posted, ’cause it’s been bugging me… I don’t think you quite realise the effect of the International News organisations. Naturally they’ll only print, show or blog what’s going to make them money. So “thousands of gay rights campaigners work tirelessly every day to make sure everyone in the US has equal access to institutions like marriage” isn’t news, whereas “kid gets kicked out of fundamentalist Christian family home for being gay in small-town Conservative Christian society” definitely is. Added to that, they tend to print stories that confirm people’s prejudices, because in the end it’s unfortunately human nature to look for information that confirms your own biases, not information that contradicts them.

    I think a lot of people realise that this vision of the world is pretty skewed to the extreme and grotesque, but regardless it’s difficult to get your head around the scale of it. There are people who’d love to paint a large section of American society as backwoods hillbilly gun-toting homophobic zealots, even though the truth is that that’s probably a tiny, tiny minority of people over there. It’s been twenty-five years since I’ve actually been to the USA, and I’m not arrogant or presumptious enough to imagine that the tiny, biased, prejudiced snapshot that I get of society reflects the larger reality in any way. And even then I still find myself having to check my own prejudices. I hear stories like the one I mentioned above – the kid who got kicked out of his family home – and they kill me. Seriously. I don’t know how anybody with any empathy at all can hear a story like that and not think that something’s deeply wrong.

    So if this new law, or laws like it, reflect changes in society, if they mean that people genuinely are becoming more tolerant of the perceived “other” – or better still, aren’t perceiving homosexuals or other minorities as the “other” at all – then I’m happy for you guys. Again, no condescention meant.

  221. Sorry to be so touchy, Paul. I’m no apologist for America. It’s got a lot of fucking problems and most of them aren’t getting any better any time soon. But it bugs me when people from countries with populations smaller than New York City start getting up on their high horse about our inability to solve them. Most countries simply cannot fathom the scale and complexity of the issues we’re dealing with here in a country of this size and diversity, with such massive, seemingly unbridgeable differences in both moral values and economic security. Throw in a political process that probably seemed like a good idea when there were only thirteen states and less than three million people but has now devolved into an infantile dick-swinging contest, and it’s a wonder anything ever gets done. So yeah, I wish we were doing better, but I actually think it’s a miracle that there’s ever any infinitesimal improvement whatsoever, given what we’re up against. Everything is bigger, takes more time, is more difficult here. I’d love it if we could pull an Iceland and throw the bankers in jail, but I know that’s a long time coming. Some countries are speedboats: small enough to turn on a dime. The U.S. is an aircraft carrier.

  222. If it helps, Germany still has no gay marriage.

  223. Really? I always pictured Germany as a very gay-friendly place. But now that I think about it, maybe I’m just thinking of Berlin and I have no idea what the rest of the country is like.

    Either way, good luck out there. It takes as long as it takes, and it’s not like passing a law magically makes the entire population better, more tolerant and progressive people, but it feels good when you know the rule of law in your homeland is just a little bit less shitty.

  224. Well, we have “gay partnership”, which is gay marriage light. Meaning that the partners have certain rights, but can’t get married and have all in all less rights than a married couple. We have a woman running our country. That’s progress enough for now, right?

  225. Oh sure. It’s like how we ended racism when we elected Obama.

  226. Are the War Boys the new Minions?

  227. The Original Paul

    June 29th, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    Majestyk – nah, it’s ok, I get you. Re-reading my first comment, it did come off as facetious, even though it wasn’t meant that way.

    Just be glad you’re not living in the UK at the moment. I don’t think you guys have a clue about just how bad it’s gotten over here. I’m not even kidding. I wish I was.

  228. I’ve been telling everybody about Splendid’s bloody foot. That is a really good detail. Also I have been informed that the cuts on her face were self-administered so she wouldn’t be the favorite anymore.

  229. Wait you really didn’t notice her slipping on the blood from the wound on the foot? I found that fairly obvious enough the first time.

    or was it Majestyk’s observation about the possible symbolic meaning that was the revelation?

    So I just finished the FURIOSA comic book and it answered some interesting questions like whether she was one of the wives or the story behind her arm while still keeping it vague enough that it never loses it’s mystique. Also some great revelations on how she came across the wives and how they eventually plotted an escape from alcatraz and all that jazz since it takes place right before the events of the movie itself.

  230. There are so many well thought out little details in the film that I doubt anyone has quick enough eyes to catch them all on the first viewing. It’s one of the reasons it’s so rewatchable. I’m so looking forward to getting the Blu-ray. I haven’t been this excited about the ability to freeze-frame a movie since CABIN IN THE WOODS.

  231. The Original Paul

    June 29th, 2015 at 3:02 pm

    Broddie – I didn’t notice a hundred and one of these little details that people have mentioned here. (I blame the screening, entirely.) I want to watch the movie again, in better surroundings, so that I can give a better-informed opinion on it.

  232. So many cool references to the previous films like the sawn off shotgun thing, the music box thing, the war boy that uses a GIVE WAY sign as a shield, unreal!

    Incredible film, a true miracle in today’s hollywood climate. How the fuck did Dr Miller convince WB to give him 150 million and make whatever he wanted?!?

  233. I finally saw this, but I feel I can’t comment on it really until I’ve seen it again, as my screening was beset with noise and people fucking around.

    What I *did* see was spectacular, though, and entirely worthy of all the love and debate.

    As Kennerado says, I loved the little references to the first 3 flims that I managed to spot, and interestingly how they would go somewhere else – the intereceptor (yay! Oh no, it’s already fucked; the shotgun – ditto), maybe there were more.

    (BTW, do we know when the DVD/Blu ray comes out? The only release date I can find is from endless emails I’;m getting from Amazon.de, telling me “September”.)

    And The Original Paul, you are correct – this country has now well and truly surrendered itself to the most heartless rule I’ve ever known. The night of the election saw me utterly slackjawered in shock. What the fuck happened?

  234. Well, the current timespan between theatrical and home video release is these days 4 months, so September sounds accurate. (Maybe August)

  235. The Original Paul

    June 30th, 2015 at 2:19 pm

    Karlos – what happened is that basically every left-wing party running proved for the last five years that they can’t be trusted, so naturally nobody voted for them. We’re further right than we’ve ever been. What that means in practice is things like the carer’s allowance (which is a benefit given to people who are caring for sick and infirm relatives who can’t care for themselves) no longer being available to people with certain other “benefits”. One of which is the state pension (which applies to the majority of OAPs in this country). Yep, good luck if you’re past retirement age in the UK and have to care for a disabled spouse or child.

    I know about this, by the way, because a relative of mine was working with carers when this change came in (during the last Tory Government regime). The way she described it, try to imagine having to tell a lot of people in their seventies that that £68 per week benefit that they rely on, sometimes have relied on for many years, is no longer available to them because they’re drawing a state pension (one that they’ve earned by working hard for the last half a century). Just one of the shitty, shitty consequences of the utter failure of the left in this country.

    The Liberals got into power as part of the “coalition Government” between the last two elections. It turned out to be the worst five or so years that they’ve ever had. They were supposed to reverse this kind of thing, to bring in the kind of reform that their supporters wanted. They failed, completely; and when they got almost no votes in the last election, they blamed it on “the politics of fear”. As though that had anything at all to do with it. The fact that their leaders could even make statements like that just proved how out-of-touch they’d become. The result: nobody trusts the left any more. Hence, the death of left-wing politics in Britain. We no longer have any reasonable candidates to vote for who aren’t either centre-right or full-on pro-right.

    Sorry for spamming the FURY ROAD comments with this kind of stuff, everyone. I won’t say anything more about this here. I just want you guys to know, if I sound bitter about this stuff, just why I am how I am.

  236. That sucks, Paul. My sincere condolences. I’m scared as shit about this first post-Obama election we got coming up. The Republican potentials are the most desperate collection of circus clowns I’ve ever seen in my life, but I’m nervous that Obama got too much progressive shit done and now a whole bunch of people might think they need to vote the exact opposite way to defeat the evils of, I don’t know, affordable health care and compassion and tolerance and whatever the fuck else these frightened, entitled little toddlers think is ruining this country. I want to believe that most people can see through this reactionary dog-and-pony show, but I’ve wanted to believe that before and look where it got me.

  237. Paul — if it makes you feel better (and I don’t know that it should) people in the U.S. were declaring the Republican party dead after their disastrous 8-year run under Bush and their humiliating near-landslide defeat by Obama. Next election cycle, they came right back. So never fear. The minute people start to feel some pain from the right, the left will be back in action. The public’s attention span is too short to really doom any party for the long term, even in the face of almost comic ineptitude.

  238. FYI: Issue 1 of the 2 part story that details what Max was up to prior to FURY ROAD which also elaborates on who that little girl was hit stores this week.

    I just got my copy today. Looking forward to seeing what it’s all about.

  239. I’d only seen the 2D version so I figured I should catch THE ADVENTURES OF MAD MAX ACROSS THE 3RD DIMENSION before it left theaters. I’m not sure what you guys are seeing when you say Splendid slips on her bloody foot. She clearly has only found purchase for her good foot when the door comes loose and causes her to fall. So I don’t see how Max has any culpability in her slipping. Maybe they’ll make a prequel comic about the mechanic who forgot to check the door for faulty O-rings so we can find out who really is to blame.

  240. lovely day its also scary

  241. Watched this movie again today, and it’s beyond good, so much detail in the action, themes and “filmatistics.” I’ve read this review several times, because it really encapsulates how damn great this movie is. I remember reading the sentence “This is a movie that will transform people’s brains” and agreeing completely. This movie came out on my wife and I’s tenth anniversary, and we both skipped work to watch the matinee. Best anniversary ever.

    Anyway, I love this review. Thanks Vern!

  242. The Original Paul

    August 9th, 2015 at 9:13 am

    Man, I feel like I missed so much about this one. Fuck the Odeon. Again.

    I want to pick it up on DVD or something and rewatch it in conditions where I can actually appreciate some of what’s been said instead of worrying about headaches and hearing loss.

  243. Well you’ll be able to…one month after the US for no good reason. What the fuck, guys?!

  244. Anybody else hear about this?

    Mad Max: Fury Road INSPIRED ARTISTS Deluxe Edition: Lee Bermejo: 9781401259037: Amazon.com: Books

    Mad Max: Fury Road INSPIRED ARTISTS Deluxe Edition [Lee Bermejo] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In anticipation of the upcoming blockbuster film MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, 65 of comics best artists took to the post apocalyptic landscape to interpret this gorgeous and desolate world of George Miller's design.  Inspired by images from the film

    I learned about it by seeing an ad for it at the end of the MAD MAX FURY ROAD: MAX #2 comic book I read a couple of weeks back. Some of my favorite current comic book artists made contributions so I’m gonna track down a copy of it ASAP>

  245. Loved FURY ROAD. Was the first and perhaps last movie I’ll ever buy on iTunes.

    I find myself imagining what it would’ve been like with Mel instead. Circa 2002 I think it would have been great, but not quite as fucking beautiful. I found some of the citadel scenes to be nearly religious experiences; for some reason I think they wouldn’t have been as fully realized, nor as powerful, a decade ago.

    Also, with Mel as star would Furiosa have been such a strong character? Would they have stifled Mel’s dialogue and cast Theron in the role? Lots of “what ifs” there, and I know that great movies often have a “lightning in a bottle” aspect to their success.

    But what lightning and what a nice bottle!

    Looking forward to MAD MAX: WASTLELAND. I hope it’s even more moving, I hope the action (while probably not as frequent) is just as epic, and I hope Mel has a cameo as a good guy.

    But even if he doesn’t I hope it’s good.

  246. This made me smile like crazy. Yes, it seems to be an ad for Game Stop, but it’s a good one and I love the enthusiasm of those people and how straight faced they play something, which could have been an unfunny joke video.

    Mad Max GoKart Paintball War - 4K!

    Pre-Order the Mad Max game at GameStop to receive your own miniature Magnum Opus Car :) http://bit.ly/Gamestoppre. Thanks so much to WB Games for sponsoring ...

  247. Christof, I believe at the time the hot rumour was NICOLE KIDMAN was going to be cast as Furiosa.

  248. Pre-ordering FURY ROAD in Sweden means you get the Vertigo comic book. Like I needed another incentive to get the blu-ray.

  249. The comics were good and showed that Mad Max could work as a comic, like a post-apocalyptic JONAH HEX style series.

    Good news if true:

    George Miller Reportedly Directing Man Of Steel 2

    Superman may get a little furious for his next solo film.That’s because Mad Max: Fury [...]

  250. Holy smokes a George Miller Superman movie? I can’t be dreaming; can I?!?

  251. The Original Paul

    August 21st, 2015 at 12:22 pm

    Is that actually a real possibility? Man.

    Gotta be honest, my first instinctive cynical response was “Ugh, now Miller’s gonna be wasting his talents on crappy superhero movies alongside Whedon and the guy who did THE ROCKETEER.” But then I remembered Vern’s BABE review, and just how much I loved the original SUPERMAN movie the first time I saw it. I’ve still not seen BABE, but if it’s even halfway as good as it seems from Vern’s write-up and the subsequent comments, and if Miller can bring some of that heart to a new Superman movie… this could be an incredible film. Of course it would depend on the Hollywood system actually letting Miller do his thing, and trusting him to make a great movie, rather than a great trailer with ninety-plus minutes of generic action fluff-filler attached. Let’s hope, eh?

    And that’s the least cynical thing you’ll hear from me all week. Now let’s get back to trashing MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE sequels and movies based on Marvel comics!

  252. Let’s hope if it’s true he can paint Nathan Jones purple and have him play the Parasite.

  253. I’m still bitter at his Justice League movie getting axed. I almost want to childishly fold my arms and say, I hope it’s not true, because he wasn’t good enough before, so they should just go fuck themselves.

  254. I guess my level of excitement depends on how much control Miller is given. If WB lets him loose and allows him to indulge his creative side, then I’m really looking forward to what Miller will come up with. I enjoyed both Avengers movies, but there were moments, especially in the second film, where I felt some of Joss Whedon’s talents were being wasted. (There were also moments that probably would have only come from Whedon, such as the party scene, which was fantastic). Superhero films are mixed blessings. With more money comes more people looking over your shoulder.

  255. That seems to be based on some pretty iffy information (the guy who directed THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN LIVES said he’s doing it, I guess) but whether it’s true or not I’m sure WB is working real hard to get him on something. To me a DC Comics movie doesn’t *sound* ideal because he’d be coming into an existing universe, storyline and cast, not creating his own version of the world as he spent years almost doing way back when.

    However, if it’s the project he chooses, that means he has an idea for it and it’s gonna be great. So whatever he wants to do, that’s what I want him to do. Even if it’s SINISTER 3 or POLICE ACADEMY REBORN.

    Not that it really matters, but I will go ahead and predict that alot of the people who finally came aboard the George Miller war rig after seeing FURY ROAD will be disappointed with whatever he does next. ‘Cause they liked the real stunts but now he’s doing digital flying, or they like Furiosa but now he’s doing a Mad Max with different characters, or whatever. But at least for this one glorious moment the whole world can unite and agree that this motherfucker just made one of the greatest movies of all time, a movie so good we as a civilization almost surely do not deserve it, but will suck up every last drop of it anyway for the rest of our lives.

  256. Is it weird that I would prefer Miller to direct SINIST3R over MAN OF STEEL 2? Okay, I haven’t even watched SIN1STER or SINI2TER*, but if his TWILIGHT ZONE segment isn’t the proof that he can direct a damn scary PG-13 horror movie full of long shots of closed doors (or windows) where something scary might go “boo” as soon they open, I don’t know what it is.

    *Mostly because while I enjoyed some of them before, those modern ghost movies look all the same to me and let’s just say that I really don’t like one of the series’ writers on a personal level.

  257. The Original Paul

    August 21st, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    RBatty – yeah, I pretty much agree 100% with that.

    Vern:

    “Not that it really matters, but I will go ahead and predict that alot of the people who finally came aboard the George Miller war rig after seeing FURY ROAD will be disappointed with whatever he does next. ‘Cause they liked the real stunts but now he’s doing digital flying, or they like Furiosa but now he’s doing a Mad Max with different characters, or whatever.”

    Now who’s being cynical? Remember all the people who said things like this before FURY ROAD came out? Specifically about Miller being overhyped or not having had a good film in twenty years or whatever? ‘Cause I’m pretty damn sure a helluva lot of those people have had to eat their words after FURY ROAD. I think the naysayers will learn their lesson for this one if it’s 1) true and 2) any good at all (and if FURY ROAD is any indication, it will be).

    As regards the rest of what you wrote, I’m in agreement with you, although maybe not for the same reasons as you give. Without knowing anything about the source of it, I also think this information sounds “iffy”, but more because I think Hollywood wants big properties like the DC and Marvel superhero films to be in the hands of “safe” directors who’ll make something generic and do whatever they’re told. See: THOR 2 (even though I liked that one), TERMINATOR GENISYS, etc. Whedon may be the exception here, but Whedon’s a public “superfan”, and Miller – as far as I know anyway – is not. I don’t think Miller fits this mould. On the other hand, I’m quite willing to see Hollywood collectively get on the back of the FURY ROAD train and use the Miller hype for a DC property, especially given the – ahem… patchy? – response to some of DC’s more recent movies (MAN OF STEEL, DARK KNIGHT RISES, etc).

  258. I don’t want Miller to mess with MAN ‘O STEEL, I want him to make MAD MAX: THE WASTELAND!

  259. After the Justice League thing, GM should tell them thanks but no thanks, I’d rather make another Mad Max movie.

  260. The Original Paul

    August 22nd, 2015 at 6:46 am

    Well if it comes down to it, as much as I enjoyed FURY ROAD as a spectacle (at least when I could get past the screening problems), I’m not a DC fan or a Mad Max fan. The whole world of Mad Max has never been one that I’ve found has any particular interest to me in and of itself.

    I’d rather Miller makes a new property that makes use of all the great stuff he showed in FURY ROAD. Maybe something sci-fi. Give us a vision of the future that’s less… dusty. That’d be good for me.

    Of course, all of this “what should Miller do” talk is a little pointless, because in the end, I think the one thing we can agree on is that Miller should do what Miller wants to do. Seems to me his judgement’s been spot-on with FURY ROAD. Give the man freedom to use his talents as he thinks fit.

  261. Paul – Miller was reading DC Comics before Whedon was even a twinkle in his dad’s eye. Matter of fact a huge reason he took on JUSTICE LEAGUE: MORTAL in the first place was because he was a major Justice League fan growing up.

    Hell as recently as a few months ago he was quoted as saying “”Comics are part of my lifeblood”

    I think if Miller does a comic book adaptation it’s because he WANTS to do it and it will be done on his terms and not because he feels forced to keep up with the Joneses; especially after having his cinematic legacy so solidly solidified already.

  262. The Original Paul

    August 22nd, 2015 at 12:14 pm

    Broddie – ahhh. I didn’t know that. Good news if this news turns out to be real.

  263. FFS. Basically a federation of international film critics awarded FURY ROAD the film of the year.

  264. For once I guess I unanimously agree with international film critics.

  265. 'Mad Max's George Miller On Charlize Theron, More Tom Hardy & No Mel Gibson

    Nearly 30 years after Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was released, George Miller returned in May with the long-anticipated and long-in-the-making Mad Max: Fury Road. With Tom Hardy taking on the role t...

  266. Best film and best director nominations at the Globes!

  267. On the Oscars short list for Best VFX I think as well.

  268. GRAPHIC 2015: Mad Max: Fury Road – Creating the Apocalypse

    In a world premiere appearance, Academy Award-winning writer, director and Mad Max creator George Miller takes us deep within the Wasteland and through Fury ...

  269. Hi all, a bit late to the party (home cinema owner … thus on bluray 6 months later).

    Interpretations I didn’t read here:

    “Remember Me?”
    Most famous “remember-me” (aka Fonda: “who are you”) is the man (Bronson) in “Once upon a time in the west”. It’s about a forgotten past and retaliation. Probably Fury (= Furiosa) was once a breeder of Joe too and lost her child and her arm due to Joe.

    “Keeper of the seeds”
    This grandma is the female mirror of Immortan Joe. Joe’s seed is about control and dehumanized reproduction in a completely selfish way. The female counterpart keeps the seeds (“the real thing”) to serve all mankind. Oma dies with a happy smile on her face, Joes dies when his face is ripped out.

    “From A (citadel) to B (green land aka muddy blue land) back to A”:
    there’s no such thing as a “frontier” anymore. We have to preserve life on our earth, not on a salty, deserted, dead planet like Mars, for example. The green land (the only place with water besides the citadel) has turned to a blue, cold, poisoned, muddy hell (ravens&co) where nothing can grow anymore. The frontier is only a dream now, best to forget.

    When I saw “MM Fury Road” ( honestly, I was not too interested and did it because of some “2015 best movies” list, I just thought: “What a lovely day!” What a masterpiece!

  270. Alex: your post made me smile and appreciate this film even more.

  271. And apparently we in the US can’t view the Youtube video that karlos posted?!

  272. Howz aboot Best Extended Car Chase Masquerading As A Movie?

  273. Larry, if you’re implying that the movie didn’t win any prizes because of it’s politics (or plain, common sense as we call it in the rest of the world), then…(pegsman shakes his head and walks away from his computer…)

  274. I don´t know what he means.

  275. Larry, I can’t tell if you are a troll or just plain ignorant. Either way I hope you find help.

  276. Vern— Well played, sir.
    Pegs and Shoot— I merely searched for and found a meme to attach to my one-sentence opinion about MM: FURY ROAD. No innuendo or deeper meaning there.
    Charles— Help with what? Opinions vary, hoss. One man’s rose fragrance can be another man’s stale fart, and vice versa.

  277. Larry your opinion/fart doesn’t make you a troll, but when you go out of your way to blast your opinion/fart in our faces when you know we are not interested makes you a troll.

  278. It’s a ten word sentence and a meme, Charles. God forbid it should sully the otherwise clean sweep of kudos for FURY ROAD found here.

  279. It’s a stupid meme, because what’s there to sully? Every interview with Miller since what, March 2015, he says almost those exact words: “one long chase”. So, trolling.

  280. I have no idea why Larry was posting the gif, but I’m glad he reminded me of Hardy dismissing that colossal dipshit asking the moronic question. That was a classic.

  281. The question as it appears is incredibly dumb, no doubt about it. But I don’t know that the reporter’s a colossal dipshit, I think he just phrased his question in a really unfortunate way. A lot of the sites that ran that GIF as a story updated it with his response, and he seems sincere to me when he says that he was awkwardly trying to congratulate Tom Hardy. I mean, before he asked the part of that question that’s quoted in the GIF, he started by congratulating Miller for making a great Mad Max movie.

    He also wrote this, seemingly before that GIF came out:

    Rise of the alpha female: Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road | Toronto Star

    Her ferocious turn opposite Tom Hardy in the rebooted Mad Max action series promises to make this the Summer of the Alpha Female at movie theatres.

    As for Larry, intentional troll or not, it’s probably best to treat him like one — i.e. ignore him. He’s an unapologetic racist and a sexist. It’s not surprising that when “searching for a meme” to attach to his opinion, he settled on one that was dumb and sexist on the face of it.

  282. Yeah, I’ll buy that. I was judging the reporter based on a question worthy of the “Manly Movies” websight, but I can believe that it came out wrong.

  283. Yup, that’s a whole lotta nominations for FURY ROAD, including the two most prestigious ones. Unfortunately when we were all originally getting our hopes up, THE REVENANT wasn’t released, so I can imagine that it won’t win any. Weird, that after months and months of praising Charlize Theron and Furiosa, she got left out. I kinda fear now hundreds of “The Oscars are anti-feminist” thinkpieces, because of this, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s nom for H8TEFUL and the scnreenplay nomination for STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, because that’s how the internet works.

  284. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON got a screenplay nomination? I love that movie but that is hilarious. I don’t even watch biopics but even I knew that it was a collection of all the genre’s tropes and cliches that WALK HARD should have put out of business, including all the (charmingly?) blunt and utilitarian expository dialogue introducing minor historical figures (“What do you think, D.O.C.?”). The nom (industry speak for “ignominious desperation”) is like the Academy putting on a sideways baseball cap and calling everyone “dog” to try and look cool. “We are down with the hip hops,” say a bunch of 70-year-old white guys in the cinematographers union.

    Watching the ofay world trip all over itself to act like they were always big supporters of these guys who were once considered the living embodiment of everything wrong with our otherwise peaceful and civilized society is endlessly entertaining to me. Motherfuckers acting like Hillary Clinton on gay marriage.

  285. The Original Paul

    January 14th, 2016 at 8:35 am

    So this is why GIFs suck: I don’t even understand them. I have no idea who’s supposed to be saying what. Was the guy asking the dumb question being ironic? Was it supposed to be a joke or a parody of the “Action Movies are for men exclusively” crowd? That’s what I’d assume from the GIF. I don’t even know from the comments if that’s supposed to be the case. As for Vern’s GIF, I have no idea what’s going on and the only person I recognise in it is maybe-Tom-Hardy.

    Taking three seconds of something out-of-context and posting it as an animated loop is not helpful, is what I’m saying.

  286. It’s Amazing Larry, Paul. How “helpful” do you think he was trying to be?

  287. The Original Paul

    January 14th, 2016 at 8:57 am

    Majestyk – and Vern’s response? I have no idea what that’s supposed to be, and I’ve read the comments about it as well.

    I’m not disagreeing about Larry. I’m just saying, if you’re gonna quote something, QUOTE something. Preferably in context.

  288. I don’t get what there is to get. Larry used some dumbbell’s dumbass question as some kind of devastating finishing move. Vern posted Hardy’s dismissive response as its natural comeback.

    What any of this has to do with Larry’s opinion that there are too many car chases in a movie about car chases is unknown.

  289. So….no more Mad Max from Dr. Miller?

    Thoughts?

    To me personally FURY ROAD was a great way for him to go out with the character as much as the idea of no more Max saddens me. Only other director worthy of following that up is Mel and we all know that will never happen.

  290. I was foolishly hoping for FURY ROAD to nab a screenwriting nom. Long shot I know. But seeing STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON nominated in its place did sting a little. FURY ROAD is a masterfully written film. Also not sure how many of you saw THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY or QUEEN OF EARTH from last year but in my opinion both of those films deserve some serious love.

    Maybe take that with a grain of salt though because I have so much time for 85% of FANTASTIC FOUR that it’s crazy. I loved so much of that fucking movie and I genuinely feel like I am completely all alone out here with that opinion. Not even trying to be contrarian. I vividly recall sitting in the theatre thinking “This is the movie that everyone’s been shitting on?” until it got to the last 15 minutes and I realised that “Oh, I see why everyone is shitting on this movie.” But I think it did some genuinely interesting things within its superhero framework and pushed at the envelopes of what is expected of films inside its wheelhouse. I understand the hate completely but I do think that it became a cultural punching bag when it maybe deserved a little more consideration and contemplation than that, behind-the-scenes bullshit notwithstanding.

    Also Alan Rickman’s performance in TRULY MADLY DEEPLY is masterful and the film itself is fantastic. Just in case anyone here hadn’t seen it and was curious about some of his deeper cuts.

  291. What was Hardys comeback response?

  292. In other news

    George Miller Will Be Involved with Mad Max Sequels

    During an interview following his DGA, Oscar nominations, George Miller said that he'll certainly be involved with at least two Mad Max: Fury Road sequels.

  293. “No.”

  294. Mr. Majestyk – I choose to interpret your most recent comment as a response to Shoot’s question and also to Larry’s entire presence on this sight.

  295. I also didn’t realize until now that Miller opting not to make any more Mad Max films did not mean that there would be no more Mad Max films. I’m saying “No” to that as well.

    Just a generalized, all-encompassing “No.”

  296. Mixalot – oh boy!

    Well I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

  297. Dammit, Larry. That’s actually pretty on point.

    Don’t make a habit of it.

  298. I actually read that article and found out that Miller is planning to direct more Mad Max. I thought it meant that he was planning to executive produce or something while handing over the reins to someone else, which seems sell-outy to me. I retract my all-purpose “No.”

  299. The Original Paul

    January 14th, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    I’m sorry – WHAT dismissive response? Does that .GIF have some kind of audio that I’m not hearing? All I’m seeing is a picture of Tom Hardy bobbing his head!

    Shoot – I feel ya!

  300. Are the subtitles not visible in Europe or something? He says “No.” Like, “No, that dumbass thing you just said never occurred to us and no more needs to be said about it.”

  301. Oh yeah, now I saw it. It just melted into the white background that most subtitles does these days when I can hardly see them.

  302. The Original Paul

    January 14th, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    Same here… and now I have the look on my face of the guy who’s just been told that an aardvark is an animal with a really long face.

  303. I feel like I don’t have much to add too this discussion. I love this movie, it was my first truly legit 3-D theatre experience and besides more praise for Mr. Junkie XL’s score, I feel like my opinion on this film has been expressed more eloquently by others already.

    That being said I always picture Guy Fieri anytime Larry posts around here and then this video was released today. I believe I know now what Larry wanted from this film, and this ladies and gentlemen is what I believe our resident troll wanted from Mad Max: Fury Road

    https://youtu.be/adzli2Q-Fho

  304. And? I’ve recently watched Mad Max for the first time since I was wee and there was a scene with a Toecutter dude pole-vaulting onto a truck (tanker?). I smiled when I saw it.

  305. Do you know how awful it is to be at your best friend’s birthday party and you hear him and two of his other friends (who are really more his friends than yours) talk about how shitty FURY ROAD is?

  306. CJ – ha, that’s actually funny because the only other time I’ve heard someone complain about Fury Road was ALSO at a birthday party. My female friend, whom I love dearly, was ranting on how bad it was because it had no story and the main character had no development. Which aren’t exactly valid complaints but I can see why someone might think that, especially if you haven’t seen any of the other Mad Max movies and were expecting something more traditional. This is also the friend who thinks Terminator 3 is better than 1 and 2 which should give you some insight into her thought process.

    What were those guys’ complaints? I will have to admit I caught a little of the end in a hotel room on HBO and the action felt alot clunkier and didn’t even come close to the theater experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a movie that loses a ton of impact on the small screen.

  307. The worst thing was, that they were using some bullshit AICN talkbacker nerd complaints (“The movie had no story”, “Driving a tanker full of milk through the desert has nothing to do with Mad Max”, “Why did they drive all the way through the desert, just to drive back”, “Tom Hardy obviously needed money” ARGH!!!!!).

    In all fairness to my buddy, who is pretty much my favourite person to watch movies with, because even the shittiest snoozefest becomes a shit ton of fun with him, he didn’t really say anything. He told me once before that he was disappointed in the movie, but we never talked about why. Knowing him, I can imagine that he maybe was in the wrong mood and totally falls in love with it, when he gives it another shot in a few years.

  308. I can understand why people who maybe aren’t wired to see the poetry and drama in action sequences would see the film as mostly filler. I could go to the ballet and just see a bunch of people leaping and twirling around willy-nilly and not get the character dynamics and themes presented by the choreography and body language. But to see people resorting to AICN catchphrases is just a shame. No one should have to stoop so low just because they don’t like a popular thing.

  309. I think I know maybe 3 or 4 people who like FURY ROAD. Everyone else I know who’s seen it hated it.

    Why? Stuff like there “wasn’t enough Max” (bullshit) and – dear Lord – it was “too feminist” (This bums me out big time.)

    Also, when I was on Facebook briefly, Jimmy Van Bebber had a huge discussion about it – he detested it.

    His reasoning I can’t remember, but it wasn’t the above – maybe that it didn’t have enough practical effects or something?

  310. Moments like these really, really test my faith in my live-and-let-live philosophy, when it comes to other peoples’ opinion on movies. I don’t wanna be the guy who thinks: “I’m smarter than the rest”, because “the rest” thinks the same about themself and I like enough movies that people who I respect would consider absolutely awful.

    But y’know…it’s hard out there for a guy who loves movies…

  311. You guys are pretty much the only people left I’ll even bother to talk about movies with. It’s not that I think everybody else is dumb, it’s just that I get no joy out of it anymore. I’m a lot happier since I realized that one of the reasons I like movies so much is because they’re something I can enjoy without getting anyone else involved. It’s just between me and the movie, and most of the time that’s the way I want to keep it.

  312. Nobody I know wants to discuss action movies. So fuck em.

  313. Watched this for the first time on bluray the other day and I actually got more out of it than I did seeing it twice in cinemas. I noticed Max had a lot more dialogue that seemed to get lost in the noise of the vehicles and Doof Warrior’s shredding in the surround sound at the cinema. The color’s of the desert are absolutely spectacular on bluray also.

    The complaint about lack of story, well, yes, if you’re not tuned to the poetic beauty of the action then you might sadly miss the thematic rythm’s of hope, survival, redemption, and the need for beauty at all costs in a time of ugliness. But man, that scene when the War Rig first reaches the pass to deliver guzzoline to the bikers, and Max and Furiosa start synching and working with each other to get through the valley, I almost cried. No, I lie, I did cry. I don’t know why, but I fuckin cried. It was beautiful.

  314. My cousin, trying his best to talk movies with me, offered that (not even intending as a criticism) Fury Road didn’t have much of a plot.

    I replied with: Gang of female prisoners escape their warlord only to return and take over the city.

    He didn’t have a response. It is something about “show don’t tell” in an age where casual viewers aren’t used to being asked to follow along themselves.

  315. Someone once wrote (I think it was Walter Benjamin) that sight is the preeminent sense in the 20th century. I think he had something there. We live in an incredibly visual culture. When I’m on the subway, sometimes I’ll steal a glance at what people find so interesting on their phones, and they’re mostly just flipping through memes and photos.

    It’s a real shame, then, that no one can sit there and actually read imagery. The first rule of film is that it’s a visual medium, but if everything isn’t explained by dialogue, then people get lost. You see this in those terrible videos that try to pick out “plot holes” in films. Half the time the supposed plot hole is something that’s easily explained through the context of the film. It just wasn’t stated explicitly to the viewer through dialogue.

    I guess what I’m getting at is, it’s not surprising that people don’t know how to watch Fury Road. The claim that there’s no plot makes little sense. Each action set piece is a little plot of its own. There’s plenty of tension and internal strife with each character, but it’s not spelled out for us in dialogue. It’s hardly hidden, but if you don’t put in the modicum of effort, I guess you’re not going to see it.

  316. And when Max says things like he’s “running from the living and the dead”, my mind goes to a hundred different story-line’s where he’s fought and won, fought and lost, as he’s hurtled through the wasteland. Please don’t ever spell it out George Miller, your visuals are more than enough to satisfy me.

  317. Stagecoach:Fury Road

    Stagecoach - Fury Road Style

    Stagecoach Tribute (Mad Max: Fury Road Style)

  318. The Black & Chrome edition will be getting a brief theatrical release. Seems my area will not be getting but some of you other guys may be luckier than me. I have my copy on pre-order and can’t wait.

  319. Vern, just read your list of modern action movies over on Thrillist. Brilliant! Couldn’t agree more on your number 1.

  320. Hope this works, but this article in the Guardian today had me laughing like a goon. If the link doesn’t work feel free to go read it on the Guardian site. Its about filming the death of the Nightrider in the first Mad Max and its gloriously insane.

    'We considered ourselves dead': the explosive tale of Mad Max's rocket car

    Few stories encapsulate the ethos of George Miller’s films like a don’t-try-this-at-home moment in an extract from Luke Buckmaster’s new book, Miller & Max

  321. I think that was discussed in the MAD MAX documentary. But it is some crazy shit

  322. man, i forget sometimes just how much of an outlawvern.com bubble i’m in until some goddamn savage yanks me out of it and starts pissing in my face.

    FURY ROAD came up in casual conversation at work today and someone said “it’s an okay movie if you turn off your brain and don’t think about it”. i pushed them to justify this bullshit and they followed up with the classic “it has no plot. the entire movie is just about people driving in one direction and then driving back again”. then they said that what little plot the movie had was “just an excuse to put scantily clad women in the film”.

    back into the bubble i go.

  323. I am so sorry, Mixalot. I don’t think I could’ve handled that.

  324. Some motherfuckers just shouldn’t be allowed to watch movies.

  325. The people, casual movie goers, who I´ve met and seen FURY ROAD appreciated its worldbuilding aspects, so I have never experienced this level of stupidity that Mixalot has encountered. I guess I live in a perfect bubble in which I seldom encounter real life morons or cretins like this.

  326. thanks for the words of support and solidarity friends. i’m currently in the midst of what has probably been the worst fortnight of my life and hearing someone so casually shit on and dismiss FURY ROAD like that was actually almost too much for me to cope with.

    i know how hyperbolic that would sound to most people but not you guys on here and that’s why i love ya.

  327. People try so hard to seem smart with their ignorance. Sorry to hear that you had to put up with that. You have greater reserve than me. I would’ve thrown my toy interceptor rifht at his head when he brought up the non existent sexism.

  328. Goodness of movie = amount of plot. Everybody knows that. That’s why TRANSFORMERS 2 is often considered the greatest film ever made.

  329. What really gets me with the ‘eh it was entertaining I guess but it’s just a dumb action movie’ so they make this line of low-budget indie or drama = good but big budget spectacle = crap, yet unless said drama/indie is nominated for an Oscar or maybe getting Oscar buzz they do not bother watch any of these drama/indies but they sure do watch a whole lot of those ‘dumb’ ‘crappy’ big budget spectacle movies.

    Also I thought goodness of a movie depended on whether or not it was from my childhood or early-adulthood or not (aka is old and I remember watching it ‘back in the day’)?

  330. I have this friend who hates everything, and he also complained that Fury Road had “no plot.” While the overall plot of the film is relatively simple, I’m not even sure if I agree that there’s little plot. A great action sequence includes plenty of plot and characterization. In a great set piece, there’s plenty of action and reaction that I would argue serves as plot. In these moments, you also get a sense of who these people are on screen. People just don’t know how to watch movies.

  331. Unfortunately we’ve reached the point, where people think that every movie, that doesn’t have a million subplots or surprise twists and doesn’t spell everybody’s backgorund and motivation out in the dialogue, has “no plot”. Even GRAVITY gets often criticized for that, but hey, if “woman stranded in space tries to survive” isn’t story enough for you, then feel free to leave the movie theatre, dumbass.

  332. Also these are the same people who think that Denzel Washington is a bad actor, because he only wears a different beard in each movie.

  333. Fine, I’ll say it: Peak TV is destroying people’s abilities to appreciate stories. A story is something with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everything in it (and everything that the storyteller has opted not to put in it) is a conscious choice to determine the form and thus the function of the story. A story is not a never-ending stream of subplots that all momentarily climax in either a cliffhanger or a shocking revelation before returning to the status quo. The broad, forgiving canvas of television has made people unable to perceive the brutal elegance of a medium that allows just a couple hours to tell an entire tale and thus necessitates hard choices on the part of the storyteller. They don’t want a definitive arc. They don’t want storytellers to kill their babies in service of the greater good. They just want second acts that stretch on to infinity, complicating and embellishing the premise of the story without ever resolving it. A film like FURY ROAD that boldly chooses not to clutter up its streamlined plot with the kind dramatic busywork that makes up the majority of television is not going to appeal to people used to a creative medium that can spend literally days of screentime answering every single little question the viewer could ever think of.

  334. As a fan of peak TV I could say that Mr . M isn’t wrong. Probably why I appreciated TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN so damn much.

    Now there was a show that finally really challenged the conventions of current TV narratives with no fucks to give. Lynch said “let’s use the time alloted to us by the TV medium while still keeping things within the confines of a cinematic narrative as much as possible.”

    It really was an 18 hour movie not an 18 episode TV show in execution. Where as most other shows play the “we’re making TV more cinematic” card very superficially (ie: better cinematography and scoring).

  335. To be fair Fury Road really doesn’t have much of a plot but it has a ton of motivation.

  336. For example for those who never watched TWIN PEAKS season 3. There was a scene where some guy swept the floor at the Roadhouse (a haven of leisure but also corruption and debauchery in that show’s universe) for like 4 minutes.

    As a fan of cinema within 34 seconds I knew what Lynch was going for. He showed that even with a long broom this place is so filthy by nature that it’d take forever to truly ever clean it up. For the rest of the scene I just enjoyed the fact that Green Onions was playing in the background.

    Your average TV fan on the net on the other hand reacted like this: “OMG why is this so long?”, “nothing is happening!”, “this is pointless”, “argh can he just stop sweeping already?!?!” etc.

    Some artists just can’t win with these people. Especially if they’re very cinematic in their creativity.

  337. Stern it’s actually packed to the gills with plot. It’s kust very nuanced about it.

  338. I don’t want to give the impression that this kind of broad canvas storytelling is always bad. I’ve got TV shows I love like anyone else, and I get suckered in with the cliffhangers and the reveals and all that happy horsecrap too. It’s just not the only kind of storytelling, though it is the easiest (any character or plot problem can be overcome by the addition of more scenes) and I think overexposure to it can make audiences untrained to accept the challenges/rewards of more efficient narrative forms.

  339. i think a lot of this comes down to the distinction that needs to be made between “plot” and “extraneous shit”. i categorically guarantee you that if you asked someone to write down, beat for beat and in detail, what happens in FURY ROAD and, for argument’s sake, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (not a film i hated, just a film that i know a lot of people enjoyed and one that kind of adheres to the formula of how a lot of tentpole films are written these days) that they would be at the very least evenly matched and, more than probably, CIVIL WAR would come away looking like it had a ton of stuff occurring that really didn’t serve the narrative or the characters in any way at all and was simply included to provide the illusion of “plot” going on. however, a lot of people seem to equate “extraneous shit” with “plot” and so films like FURY ROAD get dismissed or disregarded because it executes its plot with economy and efficiency.

  340. In the 90s when a handful of shows like Buffy or Deep Space Nine started to incorporate longer, serialized story lines, I remember being pretty excited that they were taking full advantage of their chosen medium. But today, I find so much serialized storytelling sloppy and uninteresting. There are still some shows that can fit tightly written episodes into a longer season long arc, but they’re rarer than critics would have you believe. I’m also amazed at how forgiving people are of TV shows compared to film.

    Take The Flash show, for instance. I like the Silver Age gee whiz attitude of this version of the Flash. I also think the actors have real camaraderie. All in all, it’s an enjoyable time waster. But, man, is it a complete mess if you stop to think about things like plot and motivation. And yet, this is the kind of show that nerds on the internet think the DC movies need to emulate. If someone actually made a Flash movie with all of the same flaws as the TV show, then there would be enough nerd rage to reignite a dying sun.

  341. The problem as I see it now is that movies, especially tentpole blockbusters, are over-plotted without a clear story trajectory. So when someone asks you to tell them about it, it’s like, “Well, the superhero has to do this, and get this thing, and then this happens over here, so he fights this guy, blah, blah.” But they aren’t really about anything. FURY ROAD has a more obvious STORY than TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, for example. And, yeah, maybe this is the fault of what TV has done to our expectations.

  342. A huge part of my disappointment with THE FORCE AWAKENS and my upcoming disappointment with THE LAST JEDI is exactly this: whatever else they do or don’t do, they do not in any fashion tell a complete story. FORCE AWAKENS feels more like a pilot episode of a TV show; it’s job is to set up subplots which will either be explored or dropped in subsequent, possibly open-ended, sequels, not to provide any actual resolution, or even to have any specific resolution in mind (If you think they had any kind of concrete, set idea for how the trilogy will resolve when they started out, I’ve got some Florida swampland you might be interested in purchasing).

    Obviously this is a kind of story-telling which appeals to many people, but to those of us who actually like the format called film, it doesn’t really provide what we’re looking for. We’re interested in an actual narrative, not in an ongoing serial.

  343. I hate when i read what is essentially that you can’t love both. I fucking love film and I fucking TV.

  344. And that is why despite enjoying THE FORCE AWAKENS I have no real desire to ever see it again, it’s an episode of a TV show basically, not a standalone movie worth watching again and again.

    If you look at the original trilogy it did a very good job of making every movie feel like it’s own thing, especially that first one and even though EMPIRE ended on an open note, it still felt like it had resolved the story for that installment.

  345. Sternshein — don’t know if you were talking to me, but I see absolutely nothing precluding you from liking both TV and Film (ie, narrative vs serial formats). But I do think they’re very different beasts, and liking one doesn’t necessarily make it more likely you’ll like both. I, for one, fell in love with film as a distinct beast, and don’t have a lot of use for artists trying to turn it into something else.

  346. I don’t think anyone is saying that you have to hate TV and love films. There are plenty of TV shows that I think are wonderfully done. I also like watching mediocre television so long as it remembers to be fun.

    What bugs me is the way that people fawn over television, even bad television, and are hyper critical of movies. And it does seem that people somehow have lost the ability to actually watch movies.

  347. Bitter court battle over Mad Max: Fury Road blocks two new movies

    George Miller's production company claims Warner Bros "reprehensible" behavior has destroyed their "relationship of trust".

    We waited 30 years for the 4th Max to arrive (and it was totally worth it), so what’s another 30 for part 5…..?

  348. Two things real quick: 1) What an appropriate/heartbreaking day to rewatch this movie. Who knew a movie 15 years in the making, shot in 2012, and released in 2015 would perfectly sum up TODAY, as women’s ownership of their bodies and reproductive rights are taken away from them by the regime of an insane, decrepit, doughy shitbag who surrounds himself with moronic sycophants and idiot sons, and hangs out with leaders of the big oil and gun industry when he’s not too busy holding self-congratulatory rallies to an adoring crowd. Good Lord. Btw, I don’t actually LIKE Joe or anything, but I will say unlike the other guy, Joe surprisingly seems to have no problem getting his hands dirty and displays a few surprisingly bad ass driving skills. He also at least gives water to his people every once in a while instead of like, standing on top of the Citadel throwing paper towels.

    2) Anybody own this movie on VUDU UHD? I got it via the code that came in the 3D Blu Ray (yes, it says it’s an HD code but it gave me the 4K movie!), and the VUDU streaming version….doesn’t have the orange color grading! I mean, it’s sorta there, but way less pronounced and everything has a dark sheen to it like they filmed the movie on a very cloudy day or 30 minutes before sundown. (Fortunately the copy ports over with Movies Anywhere and my Amazon HD Digital Copy is the bright and orange-y Fury Road we all know and love).

    Side note: With everything going on, the “Remember Me?” bit at the end almost brought me to tears. I love how it’s so vague and can mean any number of things, but today it meant a woman reminding her captor and tormentor that the person he thought he erased 20 years ago is the one he’s actually looking at right now. She was never gone, she was never beaten – she was just on pause while she bided her time, played nice to survive, and now that the time is right, she’s going to make him pay and unmask him to the world in the most literal sense of the word. Those two words “remember me” single-handedly put this in the upper echelon of revenge movies, despite these two characters never having a dialogue or even a scene together before this. Completely genius, and completely George Miller.

  349. Hugh Keays-Byrne! That’s a blow.

    Don't Talk PSA | George Miller & Toecutter/Immortan Joe | Alamo Drafthouse

    MAD MAX: FURY ROAD director George Miller and star Hugh Keays-Byrne reunite to bring back fan-favorite villain Toecutter with a warning for all you movie tal...

    Right, I’m off to watch the Grunchik episodes of Farscape.

  350. So I watched this yet again the other day, this time with a friend from work.

    He’s someone who hasn’t seen a lot of movies, especially not action movies. A guy my age, who liked the look of the trailer and was curious about it.

    A guy my age, who liked the look of the trailer and was curious about it.
    He liked it (or at least was polite enough to say some nice things about it), but the movie is so relentless, so manic that he had trouble following the plot and missed a ton of stuff.
    For example, he was surprised when they show Immortan Joe’s corpse at the end; He’d completely missed his death earlier on, which, to be fair, is awesome but pretty anticlimactic. He did not get why they were using Max as a blood bag and other worldbuilding details. The movie overwhelmed him, it was literally too much too fast for him to absorb.
    He’s a really intelligent dude in his forties, and doesn’t normally have issues following twisty movies (although talking to him I did notice he has trouble when things get a bit meta. For example, he liked Knives Out a lot, but had trouble with the meta elements of See How They Run, which is a much simpler movie.)

    Got me thinking that it goes to show watching a movie is also a skill that needs to be trained, and that different genres are also come with their on very particular set of skills. I think of Fury Road as the apex of crystal clear action cinematography, but it’s an evolution that incorporates lots of disparate elements over hundreds of movies, and that most of us have internalized because we grew up with the genre. It’s a very specialized machine that we’ve internalized over time. I used to think Fury Road was… if not universal, a movie any person who liked action cinema would at least enjoy. But this guy loves Die Hard, Ronin, Bond movies and, ahem, Stranger Things, and couldn’t really get into it beyond the imagery.
    Maybe spare a thought for those that watch Fury Road and only see a clanking, bewildering monstrosity.

    I’m trying to get him to watch Road Warrior now…

  351. Umm… Has anyone seen the trailer for hidden Strike?

    Jackie Chan! John Cena! Pilou Asbaek channeling Michael Shannon! Directed by Scott Waugh, and with a trailer that is at least hoping to trigger at least some Fury Road associations. I mean, I guess the action is more latter day F&F-inspired, but the color palette and some of the poorly traced iconography is clear.

    Only that it has a very Chinese blockbuster sensibility – you know, extremely fake-looking CGI, a terrible, chintzy aesthetic sense, and a complete disregard for basic physics that makes the F&F car physics look like the Blues Brothers. Looks tacky as hell, and kind of terrible, but I’m tempted.

  352. Also it has been sitting on the shelf for several years. As of maybe a year ago I heard it might never be released. So keep that in mind when setting your expectations, but I’m curious too.

  353. I used to be a Jackie su[erfan, was before eve Bronx came out even though I only had a few of his tapes (Police Story, Fearless Hyena, untranslated versions of SuperCop and Miracles). But I haven’t seen one of his flicks in some time…boy are they terrible. I mean back in the day a lot of them were fairly terrible except for the fights, and now we don’t get the fights.

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