Amph Mad Max Franchise (Now: Furiosa)

Looks like the venerable and not very good Matrix Reloaded will remain the undisputed box office king of R rated sci fi action.

 

It's very enjoyable film during the action scenes but it's let down when those sequences stop. They're not bad by any means, they just fall a bit flat.

 

Nah that goes to Passion of the Christ.








See what I did there?

 

love it

For guaranteed box office success Miller should write a series of young adult novels based on the Mad Max universe, then adapt them for the big screen.

 

They'll tell the touching story of how a young woman and a young man fall in love despite the fact that the young man is secretly a Mad Max.

 

And a sequel to a franchise whose previous entry was released 30 years ago.

 

Saw it last night and I guess I liked it cuz at least it wasn't a comic book movie which is what my peers usually wind up dragging me to these days. The ant man trailer before the film (who the **** is ant man Jesus christ) helped to remind me how fortunate I was. A diverting evening, if altogether forgettable. At least it wasn't Avengers 2: Holy **** There's Robots Now

More like Sad Jack's Furry Chode

 

but it's feminist, RT. Didn't you see the part where the scantily clad sex slave removes her chastity belt with a pair of bolt cutters?

 

I liked when she kicked it

 

The reason it's feminist was cuz Charlize Theron was basically the protagonist which was cool but it's still basically a ride with threadbare plot

 

I disagree. I say it has a threadbare plot, but what a ride!


It seems pretty clear to me that at some point over a series of drafts Mad Max was split into two characters, one of whom was a women, in order to head off criticisms that might otherwise have arisen over a movie about a bunch of men in fast cars fighting over scantily clad sex slaves.

 

I keep asking my threadbare colleagues to go, but they keep coming up with excuses to work. It seems to me that this is one of those movies that you need to see while you should be working.

Seconded. Or - since there are 25 more Marvel movies coming:
Twenty-sixth.

 

You are right. Miller has explicitely said that there was no way he was doing a movie where the plot was basically about a man basically stealing sex slaves from another man.

 

Then Miller will never direct a Bond movie.

 

The rocker with the flame throwing guitar

 

Fury Road is resolutely a feminist film. It kicks off with an escape from sex slavers, continues with a maternalistic taming/converting of one of the young male antagonists (Nux?), and ends with them flat-out destroying the warlord's regime and supplanting it with a matriarchy.

Unless your definition of feminism is something along the lines of Sex and the City (which means you're a materialistic, callow imbecile), a film couldn't be any more radical. And personally speaking, as a man who stood beside angry mothers of dead Iraq veterans, it's a thread of feminism I could get behind--reclaiming the world from the greedy, brutal thugs who rendered it a living hell.

 

This was so freaking bizarre and made no real sense that it was just purely awesome. It feeds into the freak show aspect of the film, where you're asking yourself, "am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?" It just so far from the norm. I'm so happy this movie doesn't try to ground itself in reality and goes full throttle in the surreal.

 

I like the movie but it feels a little bit more cynical and exploitive to me than that.

Here's the movie studio exec dialogue

Studio executive one: How do we keep the sexy looking sex slaves front and center without coming across as completely douchy?
Studio executive two: I know, let's have them rescued by Ellen Ripley.
Studio executive one: That's a bingo! And we'll do PR about how we consulted with a human trafficking expert!
Studio executive two: Critics will lap that **** up.
Studio executive one: It will be hailed as a feminist masterpiece!
Studio executive two: by all the 40 year old men who go see it?
Studio executive one: absolutely!

 

Oh but it makes complete sense. All through history armies have brought music the the battlefield, war drums being the best example. So think of it as a heavy metal post apocalyptic war drum.

 

IIRC, drums on the battlefields were used to communicate tactics and to coordinate troop movements. But, in the world of Mad Max it's plausible that the guitar riffs and whatnot serve a purpose, such as intimidation or a boost to morale. It's still a bizarre which is a good thing.

 

I very rarely venture out of the Star Wars film boards on here, but I just wanted to stop in this thread and mention how incredible this film is. A very simple story told in an extremely complex visual way, gorgeously directed and shot, with some really great performances and incredible, jaw-dropping stunts. This is the kind of movie the summer film season was made for.

 

Jabbadabbadoo: (Great name, by the way) I wouldn't ascribe cynicism, myself. George Miller has dabbled in this pool of feminism before. Recall that in the end of The Witches of Eastwick, the three titular characters defeat the Devil, move into his mansion, and forge a matriarchal utopia with their children and infants. Miller genuinely believes the world would be better off if men were pushed to the periphery by mother goddess-archetypes. His is an intensely appealing conceit.

And if Miller's heroines happen to be staggeringly beautiful, well...such are the demands of genre filmmaking. (Also, turnabout is fair play. Even this straight fella can admit that Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy are easy on the eyes.)

 

How did we get to this point? For quite some time, R-rated action films full of violence and profanity and humor were huge hits and no one doubted the rating, except some movies that seemed like they could do better with a PG-13 like Backdraft.

 

I actually think some possible award nods may be in line for this film. Hearing in some circles Theron may get an actress nod. Don't think best picture or best actors nominations will be possible, but everything else may be. Issue right now is that it's so early in the year, and it's easy for movies to be forgotten between now and award season.