Amph Mad Max Franchise (Now: Furiosa)

Wilton Silver Color Mist

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KTVG86/?tag=ohmy0c-20

 

What is there to say about this film? There are no characters. There is almost nothing in the way of plot, and little coherent world-building. Several elements are over-the-top by design. In some respects, it's how action films used to be. I'm not much of one for straight action films. That said, I prefer the way things used to be to an MCU film. And where 90% of unending chase films are just exhausting and tiresome, this one managed not to be. Generally inoffensive overall, then.

 

Saw it today. It was really pretty.

 

No.

 

I've come to the conclusion that the best way to treat any post Wocky makes about a movie is to view him as Bizarro. Therefore what is said is completely true.

 

How do you mean?

A woman saying she wants redemption isn't much of a character. Neither is an action hero who hallucinates. They are very thinly sketched archetypes. Likewise, beyond the vaguest notion of a militarized oligarchy, the social structure wasn't at all clear. It works for the kind of story they wanted to tell, but every bit of it is paper thin. Realistically these are not the reasons to recommend this movie to someone.insstead they facilitate the myopic focus on the chase and action scenes that people did enjoy.

 

You just wanted to use myopic in a sentence.

 

I feel like Wocky's the sort of person who sees Warhol's Kiss and then complains that we're never told why these people are kissing.

 

Miller employed cinema specific technique and story elements to tell a cinema specific story. The show, not the tell. Miller's been using the Hitchcock quote about how the movie should be made so the Japanese can understand the film sans subtitles. Another quotation applicable from Hitchcock, regarding Strangers on a Train, said to the effect that he saved a reel of film by correct casting since the audience can sense attributes from the actors that do not need to spelled out (though I imagine Sir Alfred was slightly more eloquent). Tom Hardy does not need a soliloquy explaining how his family was killed during the conclusion of Mad Max or the terror of ***less chaps in The Road Warrior.

I imagine the positive response is partly because some of the movie going audience wants something different in a cinema experience. I would not want cinematic minimalism in every film, yet I really enjoyed this palette cleaner after Age of Ultron's meh.

 

I live, I die, I live again!

 

Did I mention that this film is basically the best movie of 2015? Well, this film is the best movie of 2015.

 

You've not seen Kung Fury yet, it seems.

 

I wouldn't dispute that. The way they put the film together was obviously intentional, and it had most of its intended effects. I'm simply pointing out that none of those designs had room for what could be fairly called a well-rounded or fleshed out character. It's a story-telling choice. But if one likes the movie, they should like it while acknowledging the role this choice plays in the final product, not by pretending it doesn't exist or getting offended when someone points it out. Conversely, 12 Angry Men never made special effects or spectacular visuals its strong point.The relatively simple set designs and limited scenery allowed for more intense focus on the characters and dialogue. That, too, is a story-telling choice, and if someone notes that the sets weren't impressive, I wouldn't expect a bunch of people to post incredulous responses.

 

The last three pages of that review of the product are completely legit. The rest are just Mad Max fans having lots of good natured fun at the author's expense. There are 18 pages in all.

 

Thanks for the update, beezel.

 

I love how affable George Miller looks in the B-roll footage.

 

Jabba-wocky does ANY of this resonate with you?

We All Agree that Mad Max: Fury Road is Great. Here’s Why It’s Also Important.

 

Special Effects breakdown.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-graphic-tale-the-visual-effects-of-mad-max-fury-road/

 

I finally saw this movie yesterday. Definitely lived up to expectations - usually straight-up action movies aren't really my thing, but as many others have said, it wasn't just a fun movie (and a visually stunning one!), it also had a lot more depth than most movies with the same number of explosions.

(I'll admit that part of my motivation for seeing it was the negative review it got over at Return of Kings. Any movie that makes the MRAs unhappy is a movie I want to see!).

 

i don't think what wocky is saying is all that controversial. yes, there are enough little bits in the dialogue, visuals, and subtext that we are able to have a nuanced conversation about the characters and their motivations. and yes, the physical performances of the actors are convincing enough to give the characters a real emotional resonance. as such, the article i think the article on the importance of the film does hit close to the mark. but also the article's main premise is that most people seem to have missed these things. so wocky is just voicing a majority opinion, yet everyone is acting like he's saying something crazy. on its surface the film is a wall-to-wall action sequence with little time devoted to the traditional sort of expository character development that people are used to. the one moment in the film where it sort of quiets down and the characters more traditionally reveal their motivations is so brief that you could have missed it if you went to the bathroom. so yeah, wocky might be wrong but he's not crazy. his is sort of the standard viewing of the film if anything. i think all of his waters of homeworlds and honorable floor sleeping and ridiculous assertions about the purity of maergary tyrell have people too quick to leap to incredulity.

 

You've seen it here first: #1 on Wocky's Enemies list comes to his defense.

 

I wouldn't call that a defense.

 

Wocky would never walk out of a movie to go to the bathroom.

 

It's not so much that I "missed" the details or that the article doesn't discuss some valid points. I simply think the commentary is overdone. Take Furiosa, for instance. Yes, we can easily infer that both she and her mother suffered some brutality at the time of their capture. But having said that, how much do we actually know about her character motivation? What does it mean, and what are we supposed to take from it?

She states that she's seeking "redemption." From what? Is it all survivor's guilt about her mother's death and capture? Or has she accepted she has nothing to do with this, and instead feels bad about the things she'd done in the interval? Has she, too, joined the anti-militarist "who killed the world" credo that is thrown out haphazardly a few times without much follow-up? Or does she only specifically regret that she did violence on behalf of someone who was so particularly brutal? All three of those are very different characters, and you could end up with very different messages from the film depending on which you chose.

But in fact, I would argue that we aren't supplied with enough information to choose definitively. It's a limitation of the storytelling style. Yes, you can make some hints that build into a few very broad themes. But one can't actually have much detailed discussion of either this content nor characterization more generally, because the substance isn't there. One could have tightened it into a story about interdependence and salvation, by juxtaposing the villain's loud proclamations of his own importance/pseudo-divinity with the deeply-rooted guilt of the two heroes, who gradually overcome their problems not by being particularly successful in "saving" everyone but learning to make sense of the sacrifice of others on their behalf to achieve common goals. Alternatively, small adjustments could have with equal ease looked into the toll of perpetual warfare on the human psyche. At present, though, we don't really see either picture painted particular strong, because they never filled in the rest of the details. There's just some lady that regrets some non-specific part of her past that has a lot of possible targets viewers can project on to.

For an action film of this sort, yes, we're looking at an unusual level of complexity. But in absolute terms, it's still not very complex at all. That's all I'm saying. There are limitations inherent in the sort of film Miller made, and this film exists firmly within them. It's not an implication that the film should have been more complex than it was. I was simply trying to assess how things stood. Do you all seriously disagree with that?