Mad Max: Fury Road: 99% Fresh with 190 Critic Reviews

[Amentep]

^Nux and Capable, Max, and the Splendid Angharad are arguably the only characters in the film with real character arcs.

 

Furiosa is a driving force in the movie, but her character doesn't really change or grow, really.

[Ineth]

^Nux and Capable, Max, and the Splendid Angharad are arguably the only characters in the film with real character arcs.

 

Furiosa is a driving force in the movie, but her character doesn't really change or grow, really.

 

Well, it's supposed to be an action movie not a character drama.

 

I'd actually say that Nux is the only one with a real character arc, but that doesn't make him the most interesting nor the most important.

 

Furiosa hasn't "changed or grown" much yet, but she could. Her actions - and the way in which she conducted them - set her up as a pretty cool character with enough nuance and potential that I would like to see a sequel where we'd learn more about who she is, what it is that she seeks penance for, and who she'll become.

 

Of course I realize that such impressions are subjective, and I don't fault anyone for seeing it differently.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Ineth

[Amentep]

^To be clear, I wasn't saying the movie needed more character development. Nor that Furiosa wasn't an interesting character.

 

And Nux does have the strongest character arc so I wouldn't disagree with those who think he's the only one with a character arc. 

[ravenshrike]

 Well... everything is more expensive then back then.  I imagine the film crews were cheap  in the past now with unions (I'm suire they had them then) they get phaid well with benefits and the like. Even extras probably get paid decent money.

 

I wager if you made the original Mad Max now with the same tech it be vastly more expensive than it was.

Pretty much all the bikers and stuntmen in Mad Max were paid with beer.

[Fighter]

So having seen it and it's very good. The reviews were very much exaggerating Max having little presence. The formula is pretty much true to the spirit of how Mad Max is known. He is a wanderer that stumbles into other peoples stories and plays an important part. He did here too, a very defining decision towards the end is driven by him. I guess it could have been different if they rebooted with Max's origin story again.

 

Furiosa is pretty great. But her story is sort of the final chapter of a character arc that's happened before the movie began. There isn't much to develop just act and it's all in the acting.

[TMZuk]

"It's true that Furiosa was a more interesting character"

 

Nah. In my opinion she was the elast interesting character that had a speaking role. Even the main villain was more interesting. The onyl thing she had was she was a cool kick ass warrior woman. That's it. Max was way more interesting and not as one dimensional. The old ladies and the  5 Princesses also had more depth than her so did Hoult's character.

 Isn't that how you'd like to phrase that?

 

I happen to disagree. In my opinion Furiosa was by far the most interesting character, and the best female action character since Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley. And once more I am in awe by the abilities of Charlize Theron. The Devil's Advocate, Æon Flux, Monster, In the Valley of Elah, Han**** and now Mad Max: Fury Road. I find her extremely versatile and even in what I consider a pair of fairly mediocre titles, Snowwhite and the Huntsman, and Prometheus, she delivers powerhouse performances.

 

P.S. Cencoring a word, because the ending is a swearword is pretty silly. Btw, Han**** is also a brewery here in Denmark. Maybe that is why it is bad.

Edited May 21, 2015 by TMZuk

[Sven_]

Nope, just twice. And yeah, so far it's not doing great, because that 150m budget was only production, it doesn't even factor in the film's massive advertising campaign. General rule of thumb these days is that you have to make back double your production budget just to break even.

 

 

Don't know about movies, but looking through this list it doesn't look that there's a whole lot of r-rated movies that rake in 50M+ domestically upon their opening week, i.e. do significantly better openings. Seems about onpar with last year's 22 Jump Street, which actually used to be a pretty mainstream franchise. If WB expected this to become some uber killer at the box office, big if, it's their fault.

 

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/mpaarating.htm?yr=2015&rating=R&view=releasedate&sort=gross&order=DESC&p=.htm

 

Not even Terminator 3 hit that, and the Terminator franchise has sadly been milked beyond its once thrilling premise into the realms of the absurd to this day (assuming this is taking inflation into account). I've personally done my deed and went a third time into the thing. This time taking my father too who could appreciate it as he grew up in the age of classic cinema, i.e. classic western movies and stuff. I think it'll do just fine, in particular as I have the impression that some still are misguided, as me initially, that this might be another case of Hollywood squeezing old assets, banking on nostalgia and remaking stuff ad infinitum (with better technique, but less actual competence and personel). As said, I liked the Max movies, but I didn't exactly follow the entire production for this one. Even so, if this was the last we seen of Max on a big screen, at least it went out with a bang (until somebody runs out of scripts in 2030ish anyway and wants a movie that banks in on the success of that Fallout 6 game). Not many series you could say that about anymore...

Edited May 21, 2015 by Sven_

[melkathi]

^Nux and Capable, Max, and the Splendid Angharad are arguably the only characters in the film with real character arcs.

 

Furiosa is a driving force in the movie, but her character doesn't really change or grow, really.

 

 

I would argue that Furiosa (and Max as well) do not "grow" in the movie as their character is already grown. They already struggle with their daemons, they already have reached that breaking point where they discarded their old self and have confronted the pox-eclipse, deciding not to just crawl in a corner and wait to die.  

Max is already on his fourth movie. Compared to what happened to him on a personal level in the first movie and to all the crap he has witnessed since, what is happening here is not that shocking to him. He is mostly struggling with his own fatalism, but that is no longer growth, it is the result of growth.

For Furiosa we are also shown the end of a journey. She struggled in the Citadel to become powerful enough to escape to her homeland. Who knows how she lost an arm in the process - doesn't even matter. But when her personal journey took her to actively bring about the events of the movie, those events are not going to dramatically change her - they are the result of any change she already underwent.

 

Nux on the other hand was a brainwashed boy, underneath it a tabula rasa. He had to grow or die (or grow and die) when he was ripped out of his world.

In a way, the events of the movie are Nux's  pox-eclipse. When the world ended, Max was ripped out of his world. When Furiosa was taken to the Citadel, her mother murdered, her world ended. But for Nux this was his world. And it is taken from him in the movie.

[Blarghagh]

I'm with melkathi here, I think the focus on character arcs in fiction is overblown. Not every character needs one. Max and Furiosa work perfectly fine without one. Some characters are the rocks that other people have to steer around.

[Aram]

Another thing I realized set this movie apart is the moment where Max and Furiosa decide to be allies instead of enemies. This is one of the most cliched developements in action and we all knew it was coming and the film knew we all knew it was coming and didn't **** around with all the usual steps. A lesser movie would have had Max see the cars rushing up on them and hesitate. Furiosa would have yelled "Give me a gun!" Bad guys would take shots at their tires as Max struggled with his inner demons. Then he'd have given her a gun reluctantly and as soon as they fought off the baddies they'd smile at each other but then frown and point their guns at each other. Finally one of the women in back would have said "STOP IT STOP IT Can't you see we'll only survive if we work together as a team!" And they would finally, reluctantly lower their guns, and the audience would sigh with relief because finally the movie could get back to being a movie.

 

In this film, Max sees the bad guys coming up, says "**** it" and gives her a rifle. And I am so, so, so grateful for that.

[Sven_]

 

 

The great thing about this movie, and the thing everyone should actually be talking about, is that no matter how much commotion is on the screen at once, or how fast everything is moving, or how frantic everyone is behaving, I did not at any point feel like I was having trouble following it. This is a big, big deal today. The Bourne films, the Taken films, the Transformers films, the like six movies where aliens blow up a city and nothing else happens, and just about every single super hero movie that has come out, they have all somehow managed to train their directors and cinematographers to painstakingly unlearn every important technique directors have carefully crafted to ensure that the audience's brains can easily and effortlessly follow the action as it flows on screen. Every fight scene in the last ten years has been between people who shouldn't know karate doing crazy karate moves while the camera darts around them every which way and cutting approximately every quarter of a nanosecond. Characters swapping places. Blows you only know connect because of the sound effects. Nobody ever seeming to get tired except the viewer. No indication at all of which side is gaining ground and which is losing it. Battles are editted where they should be chereographed, and choreographed where they should be editted.

 

 

You'll probably enjoy this quote directly from Miller.

 

 

 

We don’t defy the laws of physics: There are no flying men or cars in this movie. So it made sense to do it old-school: real vehicles and real human beings in the desert. We shot the movie more or less in continuity, because the cars and the characters get really banged up along the way. The biggest benefit of digital technology for me was that the cameras were smaller and much more agile, so you could put them anywhere. We also spent a huge amount of time on spatial awareness—making sure the viewer could follow the action and understand what was happening. There has to be a strong causal connection from one shot to the next, just the same way that in music, there has to be a connection from one note to the next. Otherwise it’s just noise.

 

The noise has become the norm, and it isn't recognized as such, but for film makers has become a distinct style slapped onto everything. Upon giving it a thought, I agree and that's another thing that made me instinctively draw the connection to the actual classics, apart from the no-nonsense take on things.

 

You probably know this essay as well, I figure? https://vimeo.com/28016047

 

In an ideal world, this would be a highly influential film -- it's made like the classics, but doesn't feel outdated an iota, in fact, it makes contemporary action cinema feel real odd (which the media picks up on too -- lost count on the articles that argue Furious 7 to feel real old hat and slow in comparison, and that's a franchise all about fast speed and faster cars and not much else to begin with). However it requires a certain kind of personnel and schooling likely, and there's no doubt that Miller and John Seale grew up with classic cinema rather than video games or music videos. It appears they're the last dinosaurs on that block, though. :-/

Edited May 22, 2015 by Sven_

[Dadalama]

 

 

 

The great thing about this movie, and the thing everyone should actually be talking about, is that no matter how much commotion is on the screen at once, or how fast everything is moving, or how frantic everyone is behaving, I did not at any point feel like I was having trouble following it. This is a big, big deal today. The Bourne films, the Taken films, the Transformers films, the like six movies where aliens blow up a city and nothing else happens, and just about every single super hero movie that has come out, they have all somehow managed to train their directors and cinematographers to painstakingly unlearn every important technique directors have carefully crafted to ensure that the audience's brains can easily and effortlessly follow the action as it flows on screen. Every fight scene in the last ten years has been between people who shouldn't know karate doing crazy karate moves while the camera darts around them every which way and cutting approximately every quarter of a nanosecond. Characters swapping places. Blows you only know connect because of the sound effects. Nobody ever seeming to get tired except the viewer. No indication at all of which side is gaining ground and which is losing it. Battles are editted where they should be chereographed, and choreographed where they should be editted.

 

 

You'll probably enjoy this quote directly from Miller.

 

 

 

We don’t defy the laws of physics: There are no flying men or cars in this movie. So it made sense to do it old-school: real vehicles and real human beings in the desert. We shot the movie more or less in continuity, because the cars and the characters get really banged up along the way. The biggest benefit of digital technology for me was that the cameras were smaller and much more agile, so you could put them anywhere. We also spent a huge amount of time on spatial awareness—making sure the viewer could follow the action and understand what was happening. There has to be a strong causal connection from one shot to the next, just the same way that in music, there has to be a connection from one note to the next. Otherwise it’s just noise.

 

The noise has become the norm, and it isn't recognized as such, but for film makers has become a distinct style slapped onto everything. Upon giving it a thought, I agree and that's another thing that made me instinctively draw the connection to the actual classics, apart from the no-nonsense take on things.

 

You probably know this essay as well, I figure? https://vimeo.com/28016047

 

In an ideal world, this would be a highly influential film -- it's made like the classics, but doesn't feel outdated an iota, in fact, it makes contemporary action cinema feel real odd (which the media picks up on too -- lost count on the articles that argue Furious 7 to feel real old hat and slow in comparison, and that's a franchise all about fast speed and faster cars and not much else to begin with). However it requires a certain kind of personnel and schooling likely, and there's no doubt that Miller and John Seale grew up with classic cinema rather than video games or music videos. It appears they're the last dinosaurs on that block, though. :-/

 

I wonder how it would work if you used both in a film. Sometimes you need a sense of confusion, like when something goes wrong and you end the battle with a sense of "WTF just happened?". I think that might be a way to set up a fall for a climax that is much less visually disjointed. It's an idea.

[Sven_]

I wonder how it would work if you used both in a film. Sometimes you need a sense of confusion, like when something goes wrong and you end the battle with a sense of "WTF just happened?". I think that might be a way to set up a fall for a climax that is much less visually disjointed. It's an idea.

 

 

 

I think it's been done. Saving Private Ryan, opening vs. the rest of the movie. However in here it was a deliberate decision of a skilled film maker to film this particular sequence in such a way, to engage the viewer in the same chaos the protagonists are facing. This is a generalization, but more oftenly it appears a sloppy way to cover up that the action, if actually being focused by the cam, wouldn't provide anything worth dropping your jaw over.

 

Cover ups may include:

 

- bad stuntwork, bad effects

- popular / character actors being hired for physical roles despite not being ideal for the job (obviously Schwarzenegger's never been much of an actor, but he could tore off your arm with ease -- and for this one, Theron has a background as a dancer and a pretty big statue she could bring to the table too)

- lack of superior action story boarding skills and choreography

 

 

There was an article about the tendency to hire people in general who have no experience in doing action too, not thought about this much. http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/Why-most-modern-action-films-are-terrible I think in doses chaos is just fine. However it is more oftenly used as an excuse for a lack of any drama/tension, and arguably goes against a very fundamental and primary rule of visual storytelling, one of classic movies anyways (which is why it's probably so easy to get wrong if trying to be diverted from). If porn movies were shot in such a way, barely hinting at who's taking on whom and tiptoeing around the "action"  -- aren't action movies at their purest porn of a different kind in some way -- they'd be practically exctinct. In any case, it's hugely great to see a movie that tries to take your breath away with what's actually shown on screen, and succeeding at that, rather than with what's barely hinted at. What is undeniably gigantic is that it doesn't feel outdated to anyone at all.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Sven_

[Leferd]

Finally got a chance to see it last night. Been waiting years. Did not disappoint.

 

Tupac approves.

 

http://youtu.be/FWOsbGP5Ox4