Subject: In which a birb reviews Mad Max: Fury Road!
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Posted on: 2015-07-29 04:55:00 UTC
Yeah, I'm writing movie reviews now! I thought I'd start with one I saw this past Sunday with my family because it had only just arrived at our theater by that time. And then type up an analysis of it because why not.
My overall verdict? Truly mad from start to finish.
I thought it was a very good looking review. I'll have to make time to look at it in depth, later, though. Based on your quick verdict down there, I'm glad you weren't disappointed. Assuming, of course, that 'Mad' means 'Awesome' as it does in my language. In any case, I hope to see more movie reviews from you, as we seem to have a shortage of good ones.
And yes, mad in this case means crazy-awesome like this movie is. I too hope to review more movies in the future - the Jurassic World one will no doubt be interesting once that one hits my theater. :D
You did a great job of being informative and evaluative without just recapping the whole thing. I thought you raised some very thoughtful points in there, too. You also managed to write a review about something you really enjoyed without just ranting about how good it was, which is a major talent. I look forward to seeing more movie reviews from you.
I feel like a bit of a weenie for asking this, but exactly how gory is it? I have much lower tolerance for live-action gore than I do animated - I'm fine with Attack on Titan and Fallout, but Kingsmen was a little too much for me. Plus, I've been wondering if my mom would like it, since she's pretty fond of action movies and car chases, but she's even more sensitive about violence than I am.
It is less gory than Attack on Titan. I mean, let me think... OK, someone gets grazed with a bullet (in addition to lots of people getting shot, but you don't really get focuses on blood there,) a War Boy gets crossbow bolts in his face and shoulder (but there's not blood,) and the way that [spoiler spoiler] but that really doesn't get too much... I dunno, focus? There's some gore but it's not lovingly panned over by the camera, and there's no ludicrous amounts of fake blood being spilled around.
Though, the fight scenes are very brutal. There's a bit where Furiosa and Max fight, and it is very - well, it's basically the opposite of Black Widow flipping around like an acrobatic death machine.
I think that you should be OK watching it - the movie is very good. The only thing is that it might be hard to find it in theaters. I went to see it with my dad the other day and we had to go to this little theater 40 minutes away to see it.
(by the way! If you get nitpicky about medicine, this movie is very good about that. George Miller used to be an ER doctor, and it shows. So if you see the movie and wonder if [spoiler event with a knife] is accurate, it is basically a crude version of a real medical procedure that a cop like Max probably would know.)
This movie is ridiculously long. No, seriously. When we got out of it and checked the listings, we discovered that it was two hours and ten freaking minutes. Most of the movies we see aren't much longer than ninety minutes.
And yeah, there's some scenes of intense violence, but there actually isn't much blood to spill (not in the usual way, anyway - though the fact that Max is actively shown being used as a bloodbag throughout the first third of the movie deserves mention). I think the major reason this movie is rated R is likely the adult topics being explored, such as the treatment of women. ESPECIALLY the treatment of women.
You told me exactly what I wanted to know.
Yeah, I'll probably wait to get it until it's out on Redbox or something.
Have you seen some of the behind the scenes videos? I personally love this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgkawcew2u8
Fun fact, Charlize Theron was actually the one who decided the War Boys would be bald. Apparently quite a few of the stunt doubles were annoyed they'd have to shave their heads for the roles.
(Actually, speaking of behind-the-scenes stuff, there was so much going on. Charlize Theron and the Wives went rolling down hills to get appropriately dirty rather than sit for hours in makeup. Hugh Keays-Byrne was Team Dad to all the War Boy actors and hung up motivational posters. Charlize Theron taught the actor playing Nux how to knit and he made Christmas presents. Tom Hardy made bracelets for people. And best of all (IMO) the stunt doubles for Max and Furiosa actually fell in love and are now married with a kid.)
...I gotta say, you keep calling the Many Mothers' land the Green Land. It's the Green Place, darnit! (*pedant pedant*)
"Women are treated almost like livestock" nope, not even almost. They are livestock in the eyes of Joe and the Citadel.
Mad Max Fury Road really isn't in a timeline with the other Mad Max movies. There are bits of continuity - the Interceptor, Max having a leg brace, Max's leather jacket (which is apparently the same one Mel Gibson wore!) - but in Miller's own words, the Mad Max movies are more like... legends of the man called Mad Max, rather than a straightforward narrative.
You mention wanting a rendition of Ride of the Valkyries - I only hope that Dies Irae was enough. Also on the 'Mad Max isn't the main character,' quoth tumblr:
http://notcuddles.tumblr.com/post/119172113620/since-i-know-theres-probably-a-fair-amount-of-you
"Since I know there’s probably a fair amount of you out there who haven’t seen the first three Mad Max movies, I’m here to tell you a li’l secret about them:
All the people complaining about how Max “isn’t the main character” in Fury Road are big ol’ Fake Fanboys cause Max’s primary character trait in literally every movie is “I hate this, why is it happening, please leave me alone to brood in the desert in peace”.
He’s much more the central focus of the plot in the first movie but in Road Warrior and Thunder Dome he basically just gets kidnapped or beat up by wankers in weird bondage outfits and spends the rest of the movie trying to leave as soon as possible while other people are like “please solve our absurd post-apocalyptic problems”. There is not one single point where Max actively seeks out being a hero until it is forced upon him. He ACTIVELY TELLS PEOPLE WHO ASK HIM FOR HELP to take a hike.
Mad Max himself would like nothing better than to never, ever, ever be the main character.
He would also like for people to stop stealing his ...ing car."
Fixed the Green Place thing. Whoops!
And yeah, good call on Max actively avoiding most of the drama-fest in the previous films, too. I think part of the reason for the movie not being a direct continuation was because it went through a really long development hell prior to its release, and it was like what, 30 years after the previous film? A lot of things happened between that time and this, not just on the part of the director and his other works but also because of the times changing for the cast and such. Especially Mel Gibson. As noted in the review, I haven't seen the original films, but as far as Max is concerned, Tom Hardy's performance was good enough for me, personally.
Well y'know, George Miller was the director for all of the Mad Max films. Which kind of makes it hilarious when people complain that whoever directed Fury Road clearly didn't understand Miller's work.
Actually, there's something kind of weird about the Mad Max timeline. I mean, first of all: At the start of the film, during the scene of the War Boys leaving, there's a chant:
"We are War Boys!"
"War Boys!"
"Kami-crazy War Boys!"
"War Boys!"
"Fukushima Kami-Crazy War Boys!"
So this is a film that in-universe takes place after the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011 - obviously it can't be in the same timeline as the movies where the apocalypse came in the 80s.
Another thing: We see three characters who suggest that they lived in pre-Wasteland times. There's one of the Vulvalini ladies, who mentions how everyone had a show in the old world (and it sounds like she's talking from her own memory.) There's Immortan Joe, who was an actual colonel in the Australian military during the wars according to supplemental materials. Both of these characters are quite old.
And then there's Max, whose opening narration very strongly implies that he lived through the nuclear apocalypse. Yet he only looks about as old as Furiosa, who was definitely born after some of the apocalyptic wars - long enough after for the Vuvalini to have developed multiple clans and a distinct culture.
Considering Miller's ridiculous attention to detail (if you were so much as a background War Boy, you got to design your own costume, but every piece and detail had to have a backstory and a reason why your character had it) this had to have been intentional. It just adds to the idea of Max as a pseudo-legendary figure, in my opinion (and I've actually seen goodfic positing that Max is literally ageless and immortal.)