Saturday 4 July 2015

(Movie) Sunday Drive...a look at Mad Max: Fury Road

Thank you to thefaction0 for this request!

30 years.

It's been 30 years since George Miller last released a Mad Max film.

We'd had the taste of Thunderdome in our mouths for too long. Now we have a mix of Norse Mythology, the Littlest Hobo (look it up, it's important,) Borderlands and Mario Kart.

So, without further ado, let us drive into the post apocalyptic future once more!

Story/Dialogue: Story goes that Max Rockatansky, the Road Warrior, is being chased by the ghosts of his past and the people of the present. He is captured by the War Boys, led by Immortan Joe.
Somehow, he ends up being used as a hood ornament on a car that will have him thrown together with Furiosa; a one armed woman who can hold her own.

Okay, so first and foremost.

Max is not a hero. He is so much more than that.

I've heard a lot of things about how this is essentially Furiosa's story and people are getting angry about Max being a sidekick in his own film.

But you are simply missing the point.

The events in this film would have come to pass regardless of whether or not Max was involved.

Max is our tether to this world that seems foreign to us. Through his eyes, we witness everything that comes to pass. We are so much more immersed when we are thrown into the thick of the action in the same way Max is that the owner of the story is rendered irrelevant.

We feel as he feels.

That's what makes this movie genius.

The dialogue was sparse, as the movie did a lot more showing than telling. While I loved Tom Hardy as Max and Charlize Theron as Furiosa, their inconsistent accents irked me immensely.

I could not have given a damn if Max had suddenly become American. But pick a bloody accent, don't jump between them.


Cinematography: From the grand scale of the VFX, to the hyper colours and almost comic book feel of the visuals, the cinematics were incredible.
I saw pictures where you could swipe the screen and see what parts were real and what parts were VFX and the scale of the VFX is astounding.
I was thoroughly immersed in the rich colours of the desert at both night and day and the framing of the shots to give it that grand scale.

To watch this was to feel as though you were shredding alongside a t-rex who shot lasers from its mouth. That's how epic this movie felt visually.


Audio: THE DRUMS!!!
Watching the war boys play the drums and the guy with the flamethrower guitar just blew me away! I would not be surprised if Slipknot tried to recreate that on a stage somewhere. But listening to the audio added to the emotional response that was elicited from the audience.

Furthermore, the audio effects created and/or modified by the sound engineers is excellent, so massive props to those guys!


Overall: What a wild ride.
This movie never showed signs of slowing down and only amped it up the longer it went on. Seeing them pull a Trojan Horse of sorts made sense and the characters were likeable and crazy.
Mad Max: Fury Road is an excellent movie that takes the high octane revhead and slams it together with the Iliad.
The words that come to mind when I hear this title are: Post Apocalyptic Opera.

5 stars

Please Note: If you have requests for films to review tweet me @rave_nreviews or just comment below. Feel free to share your thoughts with me as I'd love to hear what you have to say about the review or your thoughts on the movie itself.

I also have a story blog, where I write short stories: paperbackraven.blogspot.com.au

That's everything! Thanks for reading and I'll catch you on Wednesday (Tuesday for those on the other side of the world)

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