Mad Max: Fury Road is an art-house film with a blockbuster-sized
budget. There’s minimal dialogue, no real plot and it’s 100% about the visuals
– essentially the movie is a two-hour car-chase. Don’t walk in expecting a
typical Hollywood film that holds your hand with lots of exposition; it’s an
insane world where nothing makes sense and nothing is meant to.
But let’s try anyway:
1.
Protagonist
Max; he’s pretty miffed. Haunted by flashbacks of people he couldn’t
save, the character is mysterious but immediately relatable – unlike Tom
Hardy’s obligatory weird accent for the day, which mostly consists of grunts
and mumbles. Although, to be fair, Tom Hardy could play the shark in a Jaws
remake and be amazing.
Here, he plays a man whose sole objective is survival; he’s a man
living second-to-second, minute-to-minute. After being captured at the
beginning of the movie, Max is reduced to a ‘blood-bag’ for ailing War-Boys and
is thus strapped to the front of a truck when they are ordered to chase a rogue
vehicle.
Over the course of the movie, he comes to care about the characters he
winds up with and their hopes for a future, and in a purely selfless way. A lot of
critics have said Max isn’t really the protagonist in his own movie - but
he’s the one who is changed by the time the credits roll, thanks to the
characters around him. He comes to realise that even in this nightmare world, there’s
more to life than just survival. This is the
story of how Max regains his humanity.
1 Mark
2.
Antagonist
The bad guy is called Immortan Joe, and is played by an actor from the
original Mad Max film (Hugh Keays-Byrne), but as a different villain this time.
He’s convinced his community that he’s a god since he has control of the water
supply. Each day, he goes through a very Darth Vader-like ritual where he is
placed in a menacing looking life-support suit, before addressing his people
and sending his army out on supply runs. When he learns that one of his
vehicles has gone rogue, Immortan Joe leads a brigade out into the desert to
hunt them down – complete with a vehicle solely used for war-drums and another
powered by an electric guitar which blasts fire. BAD GUY! GOT IT?
As far as villain motivations go, there’s nothing complex about this
character; he had something stolen and he wants it back. He’s interesting to
look at, but he’s only really there to be the thing the good guys are running
away from. The society he's crafted is fascinating (there’s an entire level
of his lair used solely for obese women to make a constant stream of
breast-milk), but the character itself is nothing exceptional.
Half a Mark
3.
Secondary
Characters
Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is one of Immortan Joe’s trusted rig drivers,
who goes rogue on a supply run. She steals precious cargo, the details of which
I won’t spoil here, resulting in a desperate and fiery chase through the
wasteland.
For many, Furiosa is the best character in the movie: she’s smart
(she has a killswitch on the rig, so if anyone tries to steal it without
knowing the correct sequence of switches, the vehicle stops), she’s resourceful
(she repair’s the rig from underneath as its being driven by Max), she’s tough
(she doesn’t hesitate to attack Max when he seems like he’s going to hijack the
rig, and even pulls the trigger on a shotgun inches from Max’s face, without
knowing it was broken) and she’s brave (despite missing an arm, she’ll put
herself in harm’s way to protect the cargo). In short, Furiosa is a great
character.
Nicholas Hoult plays Nux. He's one of Immortan Joe’s War-Boys who has a
disease and so uses Max as his ‘blood-bag’ in order to carry out everyday
activities - like driving a spikey car with a man chained to the front of it
through explosions and sandstorms and such.
Like the rest of the War-Boys,
Nux is a lunatic – spraying silver chrome onto his
face moments before an attempted suicide attack during the early stages of the
chase, and shouting “What a day! What a lovely day!” during the aforementioned
explosions and sandstorms. His arc is a familiar one: he just wants to make his
leader proud, but then he discovers maybe he doesn’t need his leader’s
approval, and all that matters is the power of love or something. Regardless,
like the movie as a whole, it’s watching Nux that is thrilling, rather than the
bullet points of his storyline.
1 Mark
4.
Plot
As the movie opens, Max asks the audience an interesting question. He
wonders who is crazier: the hairless, topless, chalk-white, murderous lunatics
chasing him through this insane world of fire and sand, or him for appearing to
make peace with what his existence has become.
It’s them. It’s obviously them. They’re much crazier.
The basic plot is simple: Furiosa steals cargo from the villain, so he
gathers an armada and chases her through the desert. Max is taken along for the
ride as a ‘bloodbag’, but eventually gets free and links up with Furiosa and
they try and evade capture. It’s nothing complex and I can’t award a full mark
when the plot is seemingly inconsequential; the action is what the film lives
and dies on. That said, the movie poses interesting questions about morality,
and the characters keep you hooked enough so that everything they do feels
vital.
Half a Mark
5.
Action
It’s amazing. Even though the film is set in nothing but desert, the
range of colours used combined with almost entirely practical stunts and well
framed combat, not to mention brilliantly inventive props (they manage to reinvent the spear - a weapon as old as mankind itself), ensure that
the film remains visually stunning throughout. This film has everything modern
action movies take for granted (fights on top of cars, explosions galore,
people plummeting to their deaths etc) but implements them in a way that
actually connects with the audience – you feel like anyone could die at any
time.
In the same way Netflix’s Daredevil series (review to come) gave us
hand-to-hand combat that outshines pretty much every fight scene in any Hollywood movie, every frame of Mad Max has something visually astounding happening, even
in the background. Especially in the background.
1 Mark
6.
Drama
There are some excellent character moments throughout the film, primarily
with Max, Furiosa and Nux.
Towards the end of the film, we're given more information on Furiosa’s
back-story, including where she came from and how she came to be in Immortan
Joe’s service. These scenes also convey why she is as determined as she is to
get the stolen cargo to its destination.
The lack of dialogue enhances the dramatic aspects of the movie; we don’t
need to be told why Max identifies with Furiosa as the film goes on, we can see
it through the experiences they’re forced to share and the physicality of the
actors. Where most movies would have Max explain that he’s starting to trust
Furiosa, this one shows us by having Max hand over a rifle with the last
bullet in the barrel as an enemy bears down on them.
In the final third of the film, Nux has several great character moments,
but going into detail would be spoiling his arc.
1 Mark
7.
Comedy
Nothing laugh-out-loud, but the world is so insane that it’s just funny
to witness. Tom Hardy’s facial expression of ‘well, I guess this is life now’
when he’s stood on a swinging giant pole while surrounded by carnage, and his
disbelief at being chained to the front of a vehicle heading into battle
emphasise just how bizarre this reality is.
The film subtly reminds you to
process the ludicrous mayhem on screen as more than just the CGI ‘splosions of
a lot of films these days, by showing that Max himself is even caught off guard
on occasion and yes, this is really weird. Plus, every time Nux is on screen in
the first half of the film, something hilarious happens.
1 Mark
8.
Romance
There was no real romantic sub-plot in this film, which is refreshing
(think how much better the Thor films would be without the forced love story).
There are hints at something between Max and Furiosa, and even Nux has few
moments with another character – but I took that more as him appreciating being
treated as a human for possibly the first time in years. The film gets half a
mark for setting up Max and Furiosa in future installments, without Hollywood-ing them down our throats in this one.
Half a Mark
9.
Pacing
The quiet moments are, to use a cliché, few and far between. If you want
more from a film than just the greatest action ever to slapped to celluloid,
this film will leave you wanting; you get to know the characters through their
actions rather than their words. And while Mad Max is a fantastic example of ‘show,
don’t tell’, an audience whose cinematic bread
and butter has been dialogue based films, with action sequences every
ten-to-fifteen minutes and a love-story sprinkled throughout, may misconstrue this
movie as just mindless action.
That said, it is difficult to keep an audience’s attention during the
chase scenes when the action escalates, and escalates, and escalates, and
escalates, and escalates, and escalates some more, before the payoff and
fade-to-black. The film also suffers from ‘Return of the King syndrome’: you
think the film is going to end about three or four times before it actually
does. There’s only so many times we can watch you say goodbye to your god-damn Hobbit
friends, Frodo!
Half a Mark
10.
Re-watch-ability
The film has really grown on me since seeing it, but I wonder how hooked
I’d be watching the same car chase again when there’s no riveting dialogue or
complex storytelling techniques on display between crashes to make me desperate
for a repeat viewing. However, bearing in mind the next opportunity after the
cinema run ends will be the DVD, I am tempted to see the film in all its
explosive glory one last time.
Half a Mark
Final Score: 7.5/10
Mad Max: Fury Road is definitely worth seeing on big screen.
It is visually amazing, has a great cast and even with minimal dialogue, the
characters are vibrant. Don’t wait for an inevitably less impressive smaller
screen viewing – like with last year’s Godzilla, if you’re interested in
watching the film, pay for the cinema ticket and appreciate the spectacle.
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