I must admit: I saw Mad Max: Fury Road months after its release and in the midst of its awards-season halo. That said, I do think the praise around this sci-fi/action/adventure/road popcorn flick is almost as insane as the movie is.
Even if the genre fit isn’t everybody’s scene, however, the film does have several strengths that shouldn’t be taken for granted:
- Sense of place & setting. I’m not familiar with the original Mad Max films, but this revamp of the franchise laid out the universe pretty cleanly. The order and discourse operating through this bizarre post-apocalypse world is rich with iconic, engaging motifs (especially everyone with their own steering wheel — loved it!).
- Visual style. The zombie horror-movie crispness & speed of imagery, paired with the vibrant oranges & blues, made this an exciting world to play witness to. This may be the most iconically stylized action movie this side of 300.
Where Fury Road fell short for me was in story and actual execution. The two strong elements above provided such a terrific infrastructure for what could be a real action masterpiece, but weren’t fully realized. Dragging the picture down were:
- Repetition. Both from a narrative and visual level, this road movie (which takes place almost entirely on the road) felt like so much of the same. Sure, certain fight scenes would include bonus elements (War Boys on sticks! Warlord guitar player!) but the non-stop action was less meaningful because it was, well, non-stop.
- Screenplay (possibly acting). Despite taking place in an interesting universe, the dialogue for this film came across so clunky. I’m not expecting Billy Wilder-level wit, but it was hard to invest into the characters when everything coming out of their mouths is so stiff and stagnant. This may have been partially due to the acting (I didn’t think Charlize Theron was all that great), though I can’t imagine anyone delivering those lines well.
I know I’m in the vast minority on this one – in fact, this morning Mad Max: Fury Road earned 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture! It is great to see these kinds of movies earning Oscar attention; I just wish it wasn’t this one.
Am I way off on this movie? What did you think of Fury Road? Reply below in the comments!
I agree with your critique. It was a great spectacle and some of the concepts were as cool as the setting, but story was particularly poor. Seemed in some ways a waste. The stupid hot wife characters, the repetitive plot, etc. The idea of the warboys and their lives really stuck with me. Little else.
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Haha I forgot about the wives! A lot of people rave about how modern & feminist this movie is, but the warlords’ wives were so embarrassingly helpless that they net out gains from the badass female characters, for the film to be overall neutral.
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And how do they stay so clean!!? 🙂
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Duh, all the Mother’s Milk! 😉 Which also doubles as a face wash. I remember Max splashing his face with it when they’re in that blue swampy place. I’m laughing out loud just typing this out!
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So much dumb. The only truly interesting character is the warboy.
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i was really impressed with this when I first saw it. It definitely has a wow factor for the first viewing that isn’t quite there outside of the theatre, but I still think its a fantastic genre piece! Some great points in your post, I’m wondering if you ever post this type of thing on any movie sites?
Samuel
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Thanks for the comment — That’s probably true! Watching it at home has nothing on the theatrical experience.
What do you mean “movie sites” — I mostly blog on here and also participate in online community message boards.
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Sounds great! I meant open platforms or movie sites like entertainmentweekly that are open to contributions. If you’re interested, you can post on Moviepilot.com! Let me know, samuel.harries@moviepilot.com
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Wow, that sounds awesome! I’ll def reach out 🙂
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