Mad Max: Fury Road

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Fone_Bone_2001

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Apologies if there’s already a thread; I did a search and - to my great surprise - couldn’t find one.

Anyone else seen this movie yet? It’s fantastic in every way. It’s a couple hours of pure crazy. The sense of momentum and adrenaline is overwhelming, and the visuals are staggering, but even through all the explosions, really human character arcs shine out.

I don’t think I can say I’ve ever seen such an aesthetically flawless and tonally specific depiction of a world bereft of grace. I just kept thinking of the main villain’s society, “That’s what our civilization would quickly be like if God left us to our own sinful devices.”

More fascinating than I can ever do justice to with words.
 
My husband and I saw it last week. It had amazing cinematography, no CGI (or very little) and was beautiful to watch. We, however, thought that all characters were so poorly developed that we actually didn’t care about any of them! There was little to no dialogue and even Furiosa (Charlize Theron) was pretty hard to like. The “five wives” were bland and simpering and Max spent the first half of the movie strapped to a car while wearing a face cage! So, while it was a beautiful and well shot movie, we left the theater feeling like we had been on a long car trip with relatives we didn’t especially like. 😛
 
“Who killed the world?” NOTE: Spoilers follow.

Although one almost endless chase scene, the story was one more post-apocalyptic nightmare where one tyrant rules over his own little kingdom and wants his property/harem back. The sub-culture is about people willing to die to end up in the glory of the mythical Valhalla while rumbling across Fury Road. And let’s have a vehicle fitted out with like 80 speakers and a guitar player who is either deaf or somehow protected by the wall of sound as he plays his fire spitting guitar.

It’s kill or be killed with enough bizarre costuming, body markings and ritualized attack forms. Want to hang from a pole and throw explosive tipped spears at your targets? Yeah, tie me up! Now! Woo hoo !!!

There are brief touches of humanity. Brief. Character development is minimal to almost nothing. As a scriptwriter friend said, “There were probably only 10 pages of dialogue.”

I agree. As Furiosa and Max nod to each other at the end, we know a sequel is coming. After all, all we know about Max is that he’s a very good fighter and his name is… Max.

Mad Max: The Wasteland is next. Hmm… sounds like another post-apocalyptic story with more fight scenes.

Verdict: A bit of a downer all around, especially if you don’t like seeing crazy and crazier people enjoying death and killing. With highly modified cars. Note: Toys of these cars not suitable for children, especially the spiky ones. On the plus side, some people get to survive.

Ed
 
I kind of look at it in the “B” range. Good, but not great. I know people love it for the cinematography, which was very well done, but it seemed to be missing something. Without spoiling much, there is one character who experiences a conversion I found implausible. Max was fairly flat. I agree with previous poster that the “wives” were bland. I get their purpose as a motivation in the film, but there really was no need to keep them in the forefront. Furiosa was an intriguing character, but it felt like they were trying to develop her but didn’t really follow-through. I hear there will be more development on her in a future film, so from a character standpoint, that could prove interesting, although I’m admittedly more of a story-driven fan. :o Also the film kind of drags for a while in the middle (around the area with the tree).

The action sequences and visuals are really what drive the film, no pun intended. Coloring, costumes, quirky side characters adding to the dystopia, etc… The setting is almost a character in itself. This movie did do something with action that much helps as far as I’m concerned. Modern action films try to immerse you by shaking the camera and having rapid-fire cuts of this or that, and it just turns into unintelligible confusion. This director used a specific cross-hair centering method that was more native to older movies. You can watch a couple minute clip on that style of filming here.
 
I loved it! Mad Max is one of my all time favorite movie franchises. I agree with all the other posters, though; they’re just really, really well done B-movies. Which is cool with me. Maybe we can turn this into a post-apocalyptic thread - I’m always up for recommendations in this genre!
 
Honestly, I’m not really into movies like the “Mad Max” franchise. I don’t mind post-apocalyptic action movies per se (I liked the first Terminator, Starship Troopers. and the original Matrix - and I suffered through both versions of Rollerball), but when it comes to post-apocalyptic stuff, I prefer the books Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451.

By the way - out of the three books that I mentioned, though bits and pieces can be gleaned from all three regarding today’s world, the book that turned out to be the most prophetic (except about the part regarding firemen setting fires to any house that contains books) has been Fahrenheit 451. It mentions political correctness going amock as the reason why books were banned - but people had stopped reading books long before. No one has any conversation about anything other than gossip or small talk, police chases are breaking news, people are so self-absorbed in their entertainment that they don’t pay attention to anything else, televisions are as big as the entire wall (and actually the walls ARE the televisions), the President is chosen primarily based on his looks, etc., etc., etc.
 
Post-apocalypse has rarely been done well, from a Catholic point of view. The concepts behind Terminator 2 were brilliant. It would have been almost perfect without the really foul profanity.

Ed
 
powerofk said:
Honestly, I’m not really into movies like the “Mad Max” franchise. I don’t mind post-apocalyptic action movies per se (I liked the first Terminator, Starship Troopers. and the original Matrix - and I suffered through both versions of Rollerball), but when it comes to post-apocalyptic stuff, I prefer the books Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451.

By the way - out of the three books that I mentioned, though bits and pieces can be gleaned from all three regarding today’s world, the book that turned out to be the most prophetic (except about the part regarding firemen setting fires to any house that contains books) has been Fahrenheit 451. It mentions political correctness going amock as the reason why books were banned - but people had stopped reading books long before. No one has any conversation about anything other than gossip or small talk, police chases are breaking news, people are so self-absorbed in their entertainment that they don’t pay attention to anything else, televisions are as big as the entire wall (and actually the walls ARE the televisions), the President is chosen primarily based on his looks, etc., etc., etc.
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Yeah, you’re bringing up something very interesting. What is the mechanism behind prophetic science fiction stories becoming reality? Is it just individual authors with brilliant flashes of insight, or are some of these people somehow privy to what’s actually being planned at the very highest strata of society? I’m thinking of H. G. Wells, George Orwell and Alduous Huxley being deeply involved with the Fabian Society, for instance, and Huxley’s involvement with the Tavistock Group. It seems like some of these rarefied and elite think tanks are strangely connected with these far-seeing prophetic visionary authors. It’s curious to speculate on what it all signifies. It also makes me wonder which contemporary authors might be in similar positions. I have a longstanding interest in sf books and authors, by the way.
 
In my view, the dearth of character development was a feature, not a bug.

That was a world - a culture - that had no room for humanity.

Even so, I do think some complex human traits were shining out, at least from Furiosa. She didn’t need to say a lot to communicate a rather convoluted view of herself and her role in her society. Obviously she wanted redemption for serving as that brutal tyrant’s imperator and wasn’t sure she could ever find it.

Oh, man, it was crazy.
 
Exiled_Child said:
Yeah, you’re bringing up something very interesting. What is the mechanism behind prophetic science fiction stories becoming reality? Is it just individual authors with brilliant flashes of insight, or are some of these people somehow privy to what’s actually being planned at the very highest strata of society? I’m thinking of H. G. Wells, George Orwell and Alduous Huxley being deeply involved with the Fabian Society, for instance, and Huxley’s involvement with the Tavistock Group. It seems like some of these rarefied and elite think tanks are strangely connected with these far-seeing prophetic visionary authors. It’s curious to speculate on what it all signifies. It also makes me wonder which contemporary authors might be in similar positions. I have a longstanding interest in sf books and authors, by the way.
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I think someone who is merely honest and observant of trailing trends can identify a certain “trajectory.” And until some new factor is introduced to throw off the flight of the trajectory, they will appear to be “prophetic.” You saw Pope Paul VI do this profoundly in Humana Vitae (see articles discussing this as from: Janet Smith, Mary Eberstadt, Business Insider, etc.)

Current philosophers have correctly predicted, against those who said it would affect no one, that the move toward gay “marriage” would eventually morph into polygamy, temporary marriage contracts, incestual marriages, pedophile marriages, etc… all of which have their backers already. Others have jumped further ahead and identified the eventual difficulties human cloning will cause. That’s coming too. The Church will oppose the notion. Society will tell the Church to “get with the times.” Eventually, the State will endorse it and penalize anyone who deviates from the doctrine. And clones will grow up without an attachment to a mother and father and have all kinds of identity problems, soul uncertainty, etc… And clones will feel less valued since they will not be viewed as the flesh and blood of any particular parent. It doesn’t take psychic powers to see such trajectories.

And in Mad Max, although the souped up cars and highway action are cinematic licenses, the idea of an oppressive power ruling over a destitute populous is not far-fetched. They even got the polygamy part right, along with Pope Paul VI’s objectification of women prophecy right.
 
Visually, it’s just stunning from the first few minutes. With all the deformed citizens of the Citadel, the War Boys and War Pups. the bizarre human-powered machinery, the depravity that is visited on everyone, I was reminded over and over again of Hieronymus Bosch:

 
punisherthunder said:
No.

It has an 18% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared to Mad Max’s 98%
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Which means absolutely nothing.

Rotten Tomatoes ratings are based on a film’s popularity, not it’s quality.

I wouldn’t waste my money on either film.
 
So sorry I can’t bring myself to be interested in yet dessert warrior movie. It’s like the Zombies and Vampires and wearwolves…it’s all been done to death and beyone that. Give me some dragons for a change. 😃
 
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