Review of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) by Primeprojectors — 17 Jan 2016

I love movies that can suck me into there world, without forcefully showing me everything, with overly long opening tracking shots, or a lot of exposition. Mad Max certainly doesn't have a lot of one of those. If you wrote down all of Tom Hardy's dialogue, it would roughly be the length of a couple of greeting cards. He takes after the Terminator, in T-2. Only interested in completing his goals, working with the few words he needs. Until of course he comes across people who don't speak in grunts, and he must expand his vocabulary. The great things about this movie is that it knows how you are suppose to use CGI for action sequences. Most action movies feel that bigger is better, and immediately construct a 30 story metal larva eating the Himalayas. I know computer animation takes a lot of work and takes enormous effort, but the sods who make animators go through all this are the ones I blame. Mad Max: Fury Road understands that CGI is the frosting on the cake. Making every bit of car crash feel more crisp, which works because they actually made a car crash first. If you just make a car crash using nothing but CGI, you are just making your cake with nothing but frosting. Yes we all like frosting but what's wrong with the cake batter you were using Michael Bay.

Just going to move on from that paragraph now, it was getting out of hand. If you haven't heard this yet the action in Mad Max 4(y Road) is quite good. Oh that's what you have been hearing since it came out? okay let's talk about other things. Have you heard about Furiosa? Yes? What about the flaming guitar guy? All the time? Well there isn't much more to talk about really. Mad max isn't exactly charming his way through the movie, but he helps fit with the movie's identity of broken consciousness. It's true that his actions are mostly based on survival, so he doesn't talk much because of this. He communicates through looks, like when he is trying to snipe an incoming vehicle, he does these little inflections that indicate he knows that Furiosa is the better choice to use the sniper. Little things like that make the movie. Yes the movie feels like pulse-pounding action, but it actually takes a good amount of pauses to let you breath. Once you have your breath you're ready to go. It would be hard to make this pacing not feel schizophrenic, but George Miller does it. George Miller feels like he deserves a lot of the credit.

The story for this was created using storyboard; this technique is often associated with animated features. This helped them tell their story through visuals with little words. It also gave use some of the best action sequences ever put to film. Really what makes the action feel like a whole other level is everything surrounding it. Pole dancing warriors with exploding sticks wouldn't quite feel right in say the Fast & Furious movies. It needs a production design that shows a world where SNM, post-apocalyptic, flame obsessed nuts rule the world. Also watching a weirdo spray chrome in his mouth is only right when we watch the bizarro culture it came from.

Overall the film provides us with a fascinating, eccentric, but still cruel world for great, or decent characters to blow each other up in. The action is thee past only in the hands of the Mad Max world.