Movie Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Directed by: George Miller

Starring: Tom Hardy, bald Charlize Theron, a convoy of rat bikes, dystopian citizens, endless desert, super passionate guitarist.

Honestly after Avengers: Age of Ultron, I felt that I had climaxed my movie thirst and therefore were not really into going to the movies, except for a couple titles I have been waiting for. Say Ant-Man, Inside Out, Pixels, James Bond’s Spectre, Fantastic Four and probably Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible 5 as well as the last installment of Hunger Games. You see, albeit I claimed myself as quite of a moviegoer but nevertheless, I am really picky. Mad Max was not within my list, and therefore I didn’t quite get the excitement (nor afterwards. Whoops, spoilers). But those are the days where my girlfriend was about to leave the town for good, and watching movies was one of the best alternatives we could do, so we went online and looked for a must-watch movies. This came up as headlines in several sites, with great appeal too. So without a doubt, we went to the local cinema and bought a couple tickets.

I had no prior knowledge at all about this movie nor the hype buzzed around it. Nor that I knew it was actually a trilogy with two prequels dated back to 30-ish years ago with Mel Gibson starred in it. I have no idea on what’s going on previously, I came to the cinema in blank.

And I began watching under heavy confusion.

***

In an post apocalyptic future, Max (Hardy) was found running away on the desert, tried to escape from the blood thirsty War Boys of the Citadel. These War Boys, bald pale boys who are literally blood thirsty–therefore they actively search for man to become their living blood provider, called as a blood bag. For them, to live is to be acknowledged by Immortan Joe, and to gain so they have to do anything to impress him, up until sacrificing their lives. But for the rest of the Citadel, to live is to survive and beg for Immortan Joe’s mercy, daily. Hard times indeed, and to end such suffering seems painful yet impossible. One of the high ranks of Joe’s, Furiosa (Theron) also seemed tired of such life despite that she was not one of the poor citizens of Citadel. Therefore one day, she decided to pursue her own mission by leaving the Citadel. It’s not a light decision nor journey, since no place is safe outside the Citadel, and neither the Citadel could be a shelter since Immortan Joe unleashed all of the War Boys to get her, lead by the prime leader himself. Thus the story rolls, on how Furiosa with Max as her wingman, attempting to escape the fury of Immortan Joe and finding a better place to spend the future.

***

Loud. Effing loud. And harsh too. That was the immediate impression I got during and after the movie. The movie has super strength visuals, and I think at the end it managed to build such impression that lasts. If I am to describe the movie in a sentence, I’d use a presentation built by screenshots of the movie: oil, engine, rusty metals, dry, hot, sand and dust. First of all, it didn’t give any chance for the viewers to at least digest on what’s going on, as a background premise. Yes I understand that Max was captured, used as a blood bank, escaped, decided to assist Furiosa adamantly, but at the end decided to help her cause wholeheartedly. That and the fight against Citadel. But why was there a Citadel on the first place? The distinctive society classification? Or what the hell were people shouting? What’s Valhalla? What’s a Citadel? People were loudly yelling on to anything and at the end what I understand was ‘oh, there’s a bald chick called Furiosa, highly respected in the military ranks but she has her own agenda’.

Story was a straight one, not that unpredictable but still enjoyable to follow. No no let me correct that: it wasn’t arrow straight, it was basically a straight line and reaching a U-turn. A friend of mine has a simple conclusion for the movie’s story: You started at point A, going to reach point B, and once you arrived at B you return to A. Aside from that, I couldn’t actually feel any engagement with the journey the characters embarked upon. There’s a bad guy, there were a handful rebels that tried to make a better living by escaping the bad guy, you know what let’s take down the bad guy instead. Not fresh, not sophisticated, but still enjoyable to follow. And I always view a movie inside a box-I do not at all try to relate it with semiotics or whatnot, nor did I try to analyze and extract a message from a movie, I took it as it is and contained in the frame of the screen. So in that way, I really do not understand all the hype of post Mad Max: Fury Road.

But what I do understand, is that the actions within the movie was super cool. Fricking awesome. For the most of two hours, your eyes and ears will be decorated with v8 engine cars (or more) with complete arsenal, modified at will only, and only, to serve in a rolling car fight with fire and crashes. Just as I immediately posted on Path after this movie: I believe that someone just re-played Twisted Metal and thought that “hey guys we should totally make a movie of this, with bald Charlize Theron”. So screw the story, start the engine and throw the flames, and spray that chrome.

Aside from that, there are two memorable things of the movie: One, I liked how Hoult’s character developed as one of the lost War Boys. It was really interesting to see that these War Boys, which sole purpose was to impress Immortan Joe through a competition among War Boys called who-get-killed-in-a-cooler-way, went off course and tried to explore life on it’s own.

Two, after all, it’s a movie that displayed how passion worked in your life. No matter what happen, no matter the distance, no matter if there’s an enemy trying to kick you off the stage, if you like playing the guitar, then you gotta play until the end. That’s the spirit.