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[SalmonGod]

... is violence seriously considered to be exclusively masculine in nature?  Really?

[wierd]

Funnily enough, I was composing a one-word review of the film as I watched it, and then the white-haired Vader wannabe looked at me and said, "mediocre". He quoted it word-for-word!

(Of course, the movie then proceeded to drag on for what felt like several more hours of torment, and that one word was quickly joined by several others- most of them unfit for polite company.)

I take it you live somewhere that paint-huffing hivespawn, sand people with dunebuggies, and mobile heavy metal concerts are par for the course?  If so, where is this magical place, I must seek it out and achieve a new level of jaded.

California during Burning Man?

I mean seriously, things like this are pretty common there.

[Yoink]

Well. In my experience there are three kinds of action movies: Ones that are believable enough that, despite having plenty of action, they don't require a truckload of suspension of disbelief to swallow; comedic ones that make a joke about how silly they are and end up being quite enjoyable because of it, and finally those who take themselves painfully seriously despite being completely over-the-top and unrealistic. Like this movie. Or the Expendables (or most of Stallone's old movies, for that matter).

At least 40% of the entire movie was plot armour and Stormtrooper Accuracy^TM.
There are few things I hate more in a movie than moments where the baddies unload a heap of ammo at the main characters and miss pathetically, only for the main characters to respond by popping up and gunning them all down with pinpoint accuracy- from a fucking moving vehicle. If they were full of Bloodshot-style nanocomputers making them into infallible killing machines I would understand, but this was just pure unadulterated bullshit.

It didn't help that Max in this film was such an unlikable prick. The main reason I liked the originals (well, the second film at least- the first one was good for nothing but the villains hairdo or as an example of old school low-budget Aussie cinema) was that Max really was a self-serving non-hero. Pretty much every action he took in the second film, as far as I can remember, was either in hopes of profiting from it or because the alternative was dying.
(The second film still was pretty dumb action-wise, don't get me wrong, but at least the main character was less annoying.)


I was expecting an action movie, and I will admit that I didn't particularly expect to like it from the start, but then I've expected to hate films in the past and then quite liked them when I actually saw them. The Hunger Games, for example.
I was just unprepared for quite how terrible this movie was going to be.
A friend I saw it with described some scenes as a sort of 'Fisher Price: My First Apocalypse' or 'My First Revolution', and I thought that fit rather well.

At least it looked pretty. I was going to put an "and even though..." sentence here, but I couldn't think of any real redeeming features. Dang.
Perhaps I'm especially disappointed in this movie because it cost me something like $16 to see, but if I had been watching it at home for free I would have stopped halfway through. Anyway, if you'll excuse me I'm going to go watch some good films to wash the taste of this one out of my mouth- I'm still in a bad mood and I saw the movie yesterday (although the bad mood could be due to something else, who knows).

Tl;dr: Intensely mediocre.
My original two-word review, preserved for posterity.


Edit: Oh man, now that I think of it, a Bloodshot movie would probably be awesome. Has that ever been a thing?
Also @aqizzar: Not sure I'd call that metal, although the music truck was kinda cool. Would have been nice if more of the soundtrack was in that vein, though, rather than the cheesy generic strings going on throughout most of the movie. Seriously, in the scene where Max is trying to save cybernetic-arm-lady the music got ridiculous. Then again, maybe if you actually cared about either of the characters it would have been quite moving...

[Aqizzar]

I noted earlier that Fury Road copies almost shot for shot some scenes from other action movies, especially action movies that took more than a little inspiration from Mad Max, and so thoroughly embraced the ridiculousness of what it was presenting that it was impossible for a lot of people (myself included) not to love it.

Yes, there were more than a few scenes that looked like quick-time-events from a videogame.
Yes, the music was more bombastic than even the trailer could have warned.
Yes, the character of Max in this one is a slightly harder guy to like than the originals but only really because he shows some semblance of energy instead of just being a self-centered dick before having a change of heart at the end (which happens anyway).

I think people who enjoyed it were able to do so because it's the first action movie I can remember in a generation that takes entirely seriously.  There are a few scenes that were clearly included just for their own sake.  Like a lot of great movies that don't really hold up to analysis, there's a kind of magic where every scene helps every other.  Obviously I'm not going to convince you to like it, and I don't want to, but it is such a gratuitous movie that I feel like trying to defend why I like it so much, since you're first person I've heard say they were bored by it.

I mean seriously, things like this are pretty common there.

The driver wearing a tie throws it off for me.  There is no circumstance in which anyone wearing a tie can be considered wild and crazy.

Well, the Internet's Favorite Feminist^TM is saying it's not a feminist movie because it only shows women participating in "orgies" of "male violence" and "stoically killing people", instead of "reimagining concepts of power" or "redefining our social value system", and claims the camera "treats [the brides] like things from start to finish".

Who was this exactly?  Because Jezebel.com stood in pretty sharp defense of it, and were so flummoxed at making a review they just made a huge collection of positive ones instead.

... is violence seriously considered to be exclusively masculine in nature?  Really?

To some people, yes.  The simple fact that the vast majority of violent acts of all levels have always been carried out by men means "violence = masculine" in some circles.  To be fair, the movie itself kind of uses that idea.  The wives are contrasted to the warboys by their (rather short-lived) unwillingness to kill anybody.  I find it odd how many people point that out as excellent characterization, and then in the same breath call the Vuvalina awesome for being such proficient killers.

I guess with a few days to settle the magic is starting to wear off for me.  I still think it stands as a new high-mark in the realm of action movies which Hollywood could learn a hundred important lessons from, but I'm starting to find quibbles.

For instance: the very existence of Furiosa as a character undermines the depiction of Immortan Joe's society.  We're led to believe that Joe considers women to be capital more than people, and Furiosa herself was kidnapped as a child by this crazy society, presumably for the same reasons they would kidnap anyone.  Somehow she winds up in such a high position of respect that the warboys don't question her until she goes totally off the rails, and through the whole movie is the only example of a woman Joe's society shows any respect to.

There's some extremely vague hints that she did some horrible stuff in the past, which would make sense, anything that could impress a guy like Joe would have to be pretty deplorable.  But we have no idea what.  And it does cast some minor doubt on what we know about the villain, except for reinforcing the warlike nature of his world.

There's also the angle that Furiosa strongly contrasts with the rest of the female characters, by being a grungy butch woman she's essentially treated with the respect of a man by way of looking and acting like one, but I haven't heard anybody discussing that angle except myself.

Apparently, George Miller originally wanted to make a prequel describing some of the characters' origins and especially Furiosa's, in anime form no less, but it a victim of Fury Road's ridiculously long production cycle.

[SalmonGod]

There's plenty of it that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, but I don't really judge stories that way...  My first question would be how the fuck is anything outside of the Citadel actually still alive.  That setting was presented as completely and utterly dead wasteland, subject to horrific natural disasters to top it off.  That war boy didn't even know what a tree was.

But suspension of disbelief isn't a problem for me.  I also love it when a film just embraces what it is, and doesn't stress out much over trying to justify or explain itself.

[Vattic]

Haven't seen the film and I'm not sure I will. Still I have fond memories of the other Mad Max films and dystopian fiction in general so maybe. I have become pretty jaded with Hollywood in the last few years .

Well, the Internet's Favorite Feminist^TM is saying it's not a feminist movie because it only shows women participating in "orgies" of "male violence" and "stoically killing people", instead of "reimagining concepts of power" or "redefining our social value system", and claims the camera "treats [the brides] like things from start to finish".

Who was this exactly?

Quick search for some of the quotes lead me to Anita Sarkeesian. Edit: Just found the essay where I first read her making similar arguments. Seems she sees traits as inherently masculine or feminine and wants women with feminine traits in media to be valued instead of valuing women because of having masculine traits. Personally I see more issue with dividing traits into masculine and feminine and then forcing them on men and women respectively, it's been a long time since I read the essay though so I might be remembering incorrectly.

Unless mistaken the driver of that vehicle isn't wearing a tie, it just looks that way because he has his shirt open.

[Yoink]

Haven't seen the film and I'm not sure I will.

Seems to me that reading a spoiler-filled discussion thread is rather likely to impact your experience when/if you do watch it...
Then again, in my opinion there isn't much to spoil. >.>

[Vattic]

I came here to gauge whether it was worth my time and skipped posts going into too much detail. I mostly prefer browsing threads like this to reading reviews. I respect that plenty get much entertainment from Hollywood, but personally I haven't lately and didn't think it much risk anyway given the plots of many of their films being fairly simple and predictable. Maybe it's the wrong approach, but with some things I do avoid all talk (like with Darksouls, which I am enjoying more for it I think).

[Fniff]

About Furiosa: apparently she's infertile. Presumably Immortan Joe's society is slightly more pragmatic then it is psychotically misogynistic and decided to use her for something rather then murder her. 

Shame how it wasn't explained in the film, would have been a neat character moment.

[DJ]

Anita just wants all of the culture developed so far to be erased and replaced with vaguely defined something, because Hail Tzeentch.

[nenjin]

Let's not bring her into this. I'd rather read about the movie than get derailed into Sarkeesian-isms.

[Parsely]

-and finally those who take themselves painfully seriously despite being completely over-the-top and unrealistic.

At least 40% of the entire movie was plot armour and Stormtrooper Accuracy^TM.
There are few things I hate more in a movie than moments where the baddies unload a heap of ammo at the main characters and miss pathetically,

only for the main characters to respond by popping up and gunning them all down with pinpoint accuracy- from a fucking moving vehicle. If they were full of Bloodshot-style nanocomputers making them into infallible killing machines I would understand, but this was just pure unadulterated bullshit.

It didn't help that Max in this film was such an unlikable prick. The main reason I liked the originals was that Max really was a self-serving non-hero. Pretty much every action he took in the second film, as far as I can remember, was either in hopes of profiting from it or because the alternative was dying.

A friend I saw it with described some scenes as a sort of 'Fisher Price: My First Apocalypse' or 'My First Revolution', and I thought that fit rather well.

Not sure I'd call that metal, although the music truck was kinda cool. Would have been nice if more of the soundtrack was in that vein, though, rather than the cheesy generic strings going on throughout most of the movie.

I disagree. The ergonomic and practical nature of the vehicles and the combat was what really sold me on the action scenes. The gastown cars are covered in flamethrowers, the bullet farm cars have mounted guns and they also had large plows which they used to try and slow down the war rig, the war boys had spears with homemade explosives on the end. The Russian-sounding dudes had none of the resources that Immortan Joe's tribe had so they instead covered their vehicles in spikes and armor, similarly the canyon bikers were armed only with knowledge of the terrain and makeshift grenades. George Miller had more than a hundred of these prop cars made for the movie and I thought their design was immensely clever; it really fit the Mad Max setting.

You can count the number of times they were actually shot at on one hand: Joe used his revolver once, I think the machine guns were fired once or twice near the end, I'm probably forgetting a few but most of the time the bad guys weren't using their firearms because of Joe's desire to get the breeders back without them being hurt. And it's not like the group never came to harm. Furiosa was stabbed and nearly died before Max saved her by giving her blood, the pregnant lady was run over by a truck and killed, Nux apparently died in that explosion, three or so of the old ladies were killed and the rest got beat up but survived, Max was shot in the head by a crossbow bolt. They were put in a fair amount of danger that I could totally believe them surviving. Unlike Star Wars where there are fan theories about the stormtroopers having orders to deliberately miss, the bad guys in this movie actually have orders not to shoot the main characters. I really think you're being unfair in this respect.

Kind of conflicts with your earlier complaint about people not being hit by bullets fired by people riding moving vehicles, but I think it's fair in the context of the canyon battle. When Furiosa and Max were gunning down the bikers effortlessly as they flew over the rig, I rolled my eyes so hard that they fell out of my head. I wish they had missed a few times before killing them at least, like what happened when they took on the bullet farmer. At least their accuracy is consistent; IIRC the main characters only missed when they were blind (because of the searchlight).

Pretty much every action he took in the second film, as far as I can remember, was either in hopes of profiting from it or because the alternative was dying.

But.. That's exactly what he was like in this movie. If I read it right, you liked his character in the second film because he was a non-hero. How is that not what his character is in Fury Road? In this movie the only reason he was even with the other characters is because he literally had no other choice. He went along with them because if he hopped out in the middle of the desert he wouldn't be able to survive, and if he tried to appeal to Immortan he believed he would have been killed. He even beat the shit out of Furiosa the first time they met, and then spent the next 15 minutes aiming a gun at them because he didn't trust them, because he only cares about his own safety. Then the rest of the movie he protects the group because if they die, he dies. The only exception is the end when they have the bikes, and he has the choice of leaving, but then suggests the plan to take the Citadel because.. Well, because that's Max's character. He always has a change of heart at the end of the movies. If you're suggesting his character is any different from those than in this, you're wrong.

I've been listening to the soundtrack and the music really does suck. Very generic. I wish they had done more with the Doof Warrior because his riffs were actually pretty sick. They could've had some great metal tracks.

TL;DR My review of Yoink's review is 2/10, would not read the pretty grill's reviews again. :I

-he's not as taciturn as young mel gibson.

I think you've got that backwards. Tom Hardy only had a handful of short lines in that whole movie.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I think the realism conversation is a little silly: it is Mad Max! They drive cars in an apocalypse, strike one through six against realism It is more Fallout than Wasteland in its suspension of disbelief for rule of cool.

As far as Mad Max and feminism:

While I normally really like Anita Sarkeesian's work, I have to disagree with her here (somewhat).

Indeed, slipping women into roles normally reserved for male empowerment fantasies is not necessarily feminist.

However, in the context of a dystopia, which is a genre historically concerned with destabilizing gender roles: e.g. 1984 or Zamyatin's We, such shifts are subversive and therefore aligned with the feminist project, even if not directly feminist. Because such narratives presuppose that the status quo has failed (or why an apocalypse?), and because their protagonists are often directly at odds with the homonormative society around them (e.g. protagonists will find slavery repugnant, even when raised with it as normative), they can serve as powerful tools of hyperbolic critique against the patriarchy.

Prior mad maxes focused on capitalism and industrialization as the sources of all trouble, this one seems to add toxic masculinity to the mix.  I think calling it feminist is a step too far, but it is in the fine tradition of Romero, Tarantino and other masters of disguising social critique as pulp. It doesn't claim that men are responsible for all violence (strawmen feminism), but that violence is celebrated and rewarded by traditional patriarchal masculinity: Mad Max just takes the idea to a hyperbolic conclusion, as conventional in the dystopian genre.

That said, her argument has merit and I'm glad she is not jumping on the Mad Max is super feminist bandwagon (which seems like a bit of a joke anyway), but remaining the conscientious cultural critic that she is. 

[Gatleos]

This movie

I really liked it. The practical effects, use of color, cinematography and those cars were all great. The whole thing felt like one long action scene briefly interrupted by talking, but that's exactly what I was expecting anyway.

Feminism

Eh, I noticed. Didn't really care. People are too sensitive about these things.

I also love it when a film just embraces what it is, and doesn't stress out much over trying to justify or explain itself.

That was something I really liked about this movie. It's so ridiculous, yet it's all played so deadpan.

This is something that I wish more movies did. I'm just tired of movies trying to point out their own ridiculousness with constant jokes at their own expense. It's like they're so afraid the audience might think they're being serious that they have to hurry and point out that it's totally ironic, honestly. When you expend all your energy pointing out all the wackiness in the story itself, it's a bit like explaining the joke. And it leaves no space for the audience to do that on their own. People love to poke fun at things they like, and it's a bit hard to do when it's already a parody of itself.

[Andres]

Anyone know how they managed to give Furiosa her prosthetic arm? It looks real and when she doesn't have it it really looks like she's an amputee, but then when I see a picture of the actress she's got both arms. How do they even do that?