RogerBW's Blog

Mad Max Fury Road (2015) 29 April 2023

2015 action, dir. George Miller, Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron: IMDb / allmovie. Who killed the world?

Beyond Thunderdome felt as if it were trying to remount The Road Warrior but bigger, and instead did it as a child-friendly comedy. Fury Road remounts the bit of The Road Warrior that everyone remembers, and it succeeds. And with minimal CGI there's sweat and grime, and the Doof Warrior with his flame-throwing guitar is an actual thing.

Perhaps it's a little too long? In the final battle sequences, for me everything was just too close up and just too quickly cut, and I had trouble getting a sense of who was meant to be where and what they were doing. But the rest is fine, especially the carefully-constructed legendry and culture that Joe has constructed to make his warriors into fanatics who will gladly die in his service, and we don't need to have that explained – it just works from what we observe.

The boss/henchman duality is back, and Nux (Nicholas Hoult) is one of the stars of this show, as he keeps his fanaticism but changes the goal it's serving. The other of course is Furiosa (Theron); Max is pretty much a side character here, or perhaps Furiosa's henchman as he was Pappagallo's in The Road Warrior.

Though I do slightly wonder why Max, who looks about the same age as Furiosa, is clearly meant to be the same guy who remembers a pre-collapse world, while Furiosa evidently doesn't.

But mostly this is an action-fest that doesn't compromise itself with half-digested Hero with a Thousand Faces; it lets the people do what they do, and when their plans collide, there's action. It's not perfect but it doesn't claim to be more than it is, and that's just fine with me.

(A Furiosa-backstory film has been shot and is due for release next year, and another Mad Max is planned.)

I talk about this film further on Ribbon of Memes.


  1. Posted by Owen Smith at 01:37pm on 29 April 2023

    Does the Furiosa backstory star Theron? I thought she'd retired from acting.

  2. Posted by Ashley R Pollard at 01:41pm on 29 April 2023

    Visually stunning, a thrilling ride full of action in search of a plot. Better than Thunderdome, but lacked the heart of Road Warrior. YMMV.

  3. Posted by RogerBW at 03:25pm on 29 April 2023

    Owen: no, Anya Taylor-Joy.

    Ashley: I think that's fair, though one could argue that they've tried having a plot and people said "boring, get us to the bit where a guy gets shot with a crossbow". :)

  4. Posted by Ashley R Pollard at 10:45am on 30 April 2023

    A film can do both, but I understand.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1