Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Review
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Review
This is my second review I've ever done. My first review was on Whiplash. Check out the link below if you want to see.
(https://plus.google.com/106855315502672729170/posts/WqH6hJr86e3).
The Introduction
To be honest, I actually enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road and it kind of surprised me. I didn't think it was going to be this insane. I'm not familiar with the original Mad Max movies, but that didn't stop me from liking it. The movie was awesome. Although it states that this movie is the 4th installment in its franchise, it kind of functions more like a reboot than an actual sequel.
The Plot
It's been 45 years since the collapse of civilization, and resources like food, water, and oil are scarce. Survivors cling to life at the Citadel, a fortress controlled by the tyrannical Immortan Joe. When Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) leads a band of female rebels on a daring escape throughout the Wasteland, she forges an alliance with haunted loner Max Rockatansky (played by Tom Hardy). Together, they embark on a high-speed race through the desert, pursued by the gangs of the apocalypse.
If you want to see more about the plot, check out the links below:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/plotsummary
The Good Things About The Movie
1. I like how director George Miller was able to balance the movie for long-time fans and for newcomers - Like I said, I've never seen the last 3 movies. Since I heard that this is technically a 4th movie in the franchise, I thought I wouldn't exactly catch what was going on. But I was wrong. George Miller knew that after a 30-year hiatus, there would be new people, who aren't familiar with the franchise just like me. And he did a good job at giving newcomers an understanding of what's going on, and also appealing to the fans, who have seen the original movies because I've heard plenty of fans who are saying that it's better than the originals and so on. It kind of reminds me of the Star Trek movies by J.J Abrams, which is why I kind of called Mad Max: Fury Road more like a reboot because the Star Trek movies are a reboots.
2. The Action - Some of the best action scenes this year. This movie will keep you on the edge of your seat because of how crazy it is. This movie will bring you a ton of cars flipping, explosions, and fire. This is not Michael Bay action, this is the good type of action.
WARNING: #3 CONTAINS SPOILERS, SO I WOULD RECOMMEND SKIPPING TO THE NEXT SECTION
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The feminist theme - I love how strong Furiosa's character is in this movie. She plays a much stronger role in the movie than I expected to be. They might as well call it "Mad Max & Imperator Furiosa: Fury Road". No, this is not the kind of feminism where it's trying to shoe horn this idea that females are better than males and males suck. It conveys the idea that women are just as equal as men, and that is what feminism should be. For example, apparently, in the plot, this guy named Immortan Joe is on the hunt for Imperator Furiosa and Joe's wives because Furiosa is trying to escape from him. Joe has these women slaves, who are "breeders" to have babies. Yeah, basically sex slavery I suppose. So, there was this scene where Joe discovers that all of their slaves are missing and there was writings all over the room saying "We will no longer serve you" and "We are not toys" Stuff like that. Another example was that there was a group of cool looking bikers, who know how to shoot and fight against Joe's gangs. It was later revealed that these bikers are old women. Yes, I'm not kidding. They are old women, who look like they're in their 60's or 70's, who kill a lot of trespassing gangs. To be honest, they looked like men with their helmets on.
End Spoil
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bad Things About The Movie
Really, I didn't see major problems with the film, but I did notice some things that kind of bothered me, but these things don't make the movie bad. Just to let you know. Again SPOILER ALERT
1. There were a couple of instances where it looked like characters should have died, but they don't - For instance, Max is on the hood of a car and the car gets ran over, flipping over while Max is hooked on the hood of the car. It looks like Max should have died or at least severely injured, but nope, he just gets up the next scene like nothing happened. Another instance is where The Slendid Angharad (yes, that's actually her name and she is played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) is pushed off the truck and she supposedly got ran over by a monster truck said by Max. But, yet, it was later revealed that she still survived that. Probably the character lied or maybe he thought she went under the wheels, because when we saw her after her getting "ran over", she looked fine actually. But, why would Max lie if he didn't see her go through the wheels?
End Spoil
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Inconsistency of Blood and Gore - What I mean by this is that I noticed that the movie decides to be bloody and gory towards the end of the movie. Let me explain. Okay, the movie is rated-R right? Rated R for violence throughout and disturbing images, right? Okay, in the first 2 acts of the movie, we hardly see anything gory or disgusting. It looked more like a PG-13 movie, but at the end, they just decided "okay, let's show blood and gore now", and I thought that was sort of weird, because you might as well just kept it at PG-13 level like you did for the last hour. It seemed like George Miller just had to give an excuse to make it R-rated because I heard so many people saying that it must be R-rated. I think he was kind of trying to appeal to the PG-13 audience while appealing to the R-rated audience at the same time. While the movie was at its 3rd act in production, he was like "nope, we have to make it R-rated", which is fine, but it was kind of weird how he just suddenly decides to put this blood and gore in the end, when there was none in the first 2 acts. That doesn't mean the writing is awful, it just seems hilarious just thinking about it. Maybe it was just my expectations. Maybe I thought this movie was going to have blood and disgusting amounts of gore everywhere.
Verdict & Conclusion
Mad Max: Fury Road was an enjoyable ride, but I don't think it's as good as everyone say it is, and that's my opinion. Maybe it has something to do with my lack of familiarity with the original films. But, in my eyes, I don't think Mad Max as a movie with a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.(http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mad_max_fury_road/)
However, I do agree that the action sequences are among the best in a movie so far this year and I loved its feminist message.
Score: 8.3/10
Please comment how you felt about the movie, if you saw it.
This is my second review I've ever done. My first review was on Whiplash. Check out the link below if you want to see.
(https://plus.google.com/106855315502672729170/posts/WqH6hJr86e3).
The Introduction
To be honest, I actually enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road and it kind of surprised me. I didn't think it was going to be this insane. I'm not familiar with the original Mad Max movies, but that didn't stop me from liking it. The movie was awesome. Although it states that this movie is the 4th installment in its franchise, it kind of functions more like a reboot than an actual sequel.
The Plot
It's been 45 years since the collapse of civilization, and resources like food, water, and oil are scarce. Survivors cling to life at the Citadel, a fortress controlled by the tyrannical Immortan Joe. When Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) leads a band of female rebels on a daring escape throughout the Wasteland, she forges an alliance with haunted loner Max Rockatansky (played by Tom Hardy). Together, they embark on a high-speed race through the desert, pursued by the gangs of the apocalypse.
If you want to see more about the plot, check out the links below:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/plotsummary
The Good Things About The Movie
1. I like how director George Miller was able to balance the movie for long-time fans and for newcomers - Like I said, I've never seen the last 3 movies. Since I heard that this is technically a 4th movie in the franchise, I thought I wouldn't exactly catch what was going on. But I was wrong. George Miller knew that after a 30-year hiatus, there would be new people, who aren't familiar with the franchise just like me. And he did a good job at giving newcomers an understanding of what's going on, and also appealing to the fans, who have seen the original movies because I've heard plenty of fans who are saying that it's better than the originals and so on. It kind of reminds me of the Star Trek movies by J.J Abrams, which is why I kind of called Mad Max: Fury Road more like a reboot because the Star Trek movies are a reboots.
2. The Action - Some of the best action scenes this year. This movie will keep you on the edge of your seat because of how crazy it is. This movie will bring you a ton of cars flipping, explosions, and fire. This is not Michael Bay action, this is the good type of action.
WARNING: #3 CONTAINS SPOILERS, SO I WOULD RECOMMEND SKIPPING TO THE NEXT SECTION
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The feminist theme - I love how strong Furiosa's character is in this movie. She plays a much stronger role in the movie than I expected to be. They might as well call it "Mad Max & Imperator Furiosa: Fury Road". No, this is not the kind of feminism where it's trying to shoe horn this idea that females are better than males and males suck. It conveys the idea that women are just as equal as men, and that is what feminism should be. For example, apparently, in the plot, this guy named Immortan Joe is on the hunt for Imperator Furiosa and Joe's wives because Furiosa is trying to escape from him. Joe has these women slaves, who are "breeders" to have babies. Yeah, basically sex slavery I suppose. So, there was this scene where Joe discovers that all of their slaves are missing and there was writings all over the room saying "We will no longer serve you" and "We are not toys" Stuff like that. Another example was that there was a group of cool looking bikers, who know how to shoot and fight against Joe's gangs. It was later revealed that these bikers are old women. Yes, I'm not kidding. They are old women, who look like they're in their 60's or 70's, who kill a lot of trespassing gangs. To be honest, they looked like men with their helmets on.
End Spoil
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bad Things About The Movie
Really, I didn't see major problems with the film, but I did notice some things that kind of bothered me, but these things don't make the movie bad. Just to let you know. Again SPOILER ALERT
1. There were a couple of instances where it looked like characters should have died, but they don't - For instance, Max is on the hood of a car and the car gets ran over, flipping over while Max is hooked on the hood of the car. It looks like Max should have died or at least severely injured, but nope, he just gets up the next scene like nothing happened. Another instance is where The Slendid Angharad (yes, that's actually her name and she is played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) is pushed off the truck and she supposedly got ran over by a monster truck said by Max. But, yet, it was later revealed that she still survived that. Probably the character lied or maybe he thought she went under the wheels, because when we saw her after her getting "ran over", she looked fine actually. But, why would Max lie if he didn't see her go through the wheels?
End Spoil
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Inconsistency of Blood and Gore - What I mean by this is that I noticed that the movie decides to be bloody and gory towards the end of the movie. Let me explain. Okay, the movie is rated-R right? Rated R for violence throughout and disturbing images, right? Okay, in the first 2 acts of the movie, we hardly see anything gory or disgusting. It looked more like a PG-13 movie, but at the end, they just decided "okay, let's show blood and gore now", and I thought that was sort of weird, because you might as well just kept it at PG-13 level like you did for the last hour. It seemed like George Miller just had to give an excuse to make it R-rated because I heard so many people saying that it must be R-rated. I think he was kind of trying to appeal to the PG-13 audience while appealing to the R-rated audience at the same time. While the movie was at its 3rd act in production, he was like "nope, we have to make it R-rated", which is fine, but it was kind of weird how he just suddenly decides to put this blood and gore in the end, when there was none in the first 2 acts. That doesn't mean the writing is awful, it just seems hilarious just thinking about it. Maybe it was just my expectations. Maybe I thought this movie was going to have blood and disgusting amounts of gore everywhere.
Verdict & Conclusion
Mad Max: Fury Road was an enjoyable ride, but I don't think it's as good as everyone say it is, and that's my opinion. Maybe it has something to do with my lack of familiarity with the original films. But, in my eyes, I don't think Mad Max as a movie with a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.(http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mad_max_fury_road/)
However, I do agree that the action sequences are among the best in a movie so far this year and I loved its feminist message.
Score: 8.3/10
Please comment how you felt about the movie, if you saw it.
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