Mad Max Fury Road review.

Glib reviews Of movies still in The Theatre.

Mad Max: Fury Road
- Directed By George Miller

Maybe it was all the hype, maybe not, but I probably didn’t think this film was as good as I had been told. Don’t get me wrong, it was very entertaining, and I will rate it fairly high on my dorky ‘outta 10’ scale, but simply for sheer entertainment value. Obviously the film passes the ‘Bechdel test’. But it is by no means some sort of Feminist masterpiece, nor is it some kind of misandry masterpiece as the mra nutters would have you believe.

What I watched was an exciting, silly, high budget chase movie with lots of car crashes, ‘Road Warrior-esque’ bad guys, and suitably post-apocalyptic backdrop. The look was pretty consistent with the second two Mad Max Movies; Road Warrior (I do not acknowledge the whole mad max 2 nonsense anymore than I do, ‘a new hope nonsense’ [/grumpyoldperson]) and Beyond Thunderdome, which yes, counts. It’s quirky and fun, and also has a couple of badass female characters. 

As far as Furiosa goes, she’s top notch, the rest of the women characters though are mostly one note, supermodel-y, and almost all the old ladies (not to spoil it) are just cannon fodder, aside from one or two nice crone/maiden scenes, which to be fair are nice to see. 

I also don’t get the whole Max is just a sidekick angle of criticism, I have heard: he’s in as much of the picture as he should be. Max has never been much of a talker in his earlier incarnations, why should he be so here? I thought Hardy gave Max as much gravitas as Theron did Furiosa: two great pretty equal people in terms of kick-ass heroes. I think though the movie’s super simple plot lacked the gravitas of the actors. I dug the Warboy subplot, and for me as cheesy as it was, as I think about the movie, that is the my favourite part of the plot, and it has the most tender bug eating scene in cinema history perhaps? I also didn’t care much for ‘Immorten Joe’, maybe that’s it. One note, if well set dressed villain. One note.

I may have to watch it again to come to a final judgement, but the film just lacked something for me to put it in the same league as either Road Warrior, or Mad Max, or even Beyond Thunderdome if I am honest. I have so much nostalgia for those movies, maybe nothing can live up to them. Seems reasonable to me.  Nostalgia is a high wall to climb.

I definitely recommend this as an exciting see it in the theatre post apocalyptic adventure, but if you are looking for a feminist masterpiece, wait for whatever Lucia Martel is doing next.

7.999999 Villains so Metal, they bring their own band on the car chase outta 10


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nerd-Sploitation Weekend continues

Image
Glib Reviews of New Releases NerdFest Day 2 Continuing my Nerd-Sploitation festival with the almost traditional tale of of the out of control Game Master. Earlier examples of this sort of the tiny Nerdsploitation genre includes Gamers, (and it’s sequel) or any of those movies that I don't watch, that involve video games. Zero Charisma - Directed by Katie Graham , Andrew Matthews Is a surprising solid portrayal of the aging Nerd, or Fan. The main character is in many ways a painful reminder of what its like to be so obsessed with a game (or any fantasy) that it ruins the rest of your life.  Scott The GM in question ( Sam Eidson ), may in fact be a triggering presence for many gamers, or ex gamers. Be warned, the interplay of the players and GM struggling through a ridiculously overlong campaign is more realistic than the things the players do ‘in game.’ People being talked over, outside noise causing havoc with the flow of the game, the omnipresence of snack
Read more

Review of Tangerine!

Image
Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Tangerine - Directed By Sean Baker Tangerine is one of those films that ‘feels like’ it was shot chronologically. The first few scenes are a bit rough, the acting is a bit iffy, but as the characters of Sin-Dee and Alexandra walk endlessly through their drama filled Christmas Eve Day in L.A. The picture gets more gripping, the cinematography, the acting and the script all get better, more polished in a low budget way. The locations give a nice grimy seventies feel to the whole thing. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is especially unlikeable at the beginning of the film, her single mindedness in finding her pimp/boyfriend and the girl he ‘cheated on her’ with while she was doing a month in jail, is not terribly nuanced. The buffer of the her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) trying to keep her from all the drama she is creating, while trying to hustle tickets for a show she is doing that night keeps the whole thing from being one note.
Read more

My middling review of "Night Moves" by Kelly Reichardt

Image
Glib reviews of recent DVD/Blu Ray releases. Night Moves - Directed by Kelly Reichardt This is not your father’s ‘Night Moves,’ that one is an under appreciated Arthur Penn flick with Gene Hackman. Both do crucially involve boats though. I wanted to like this film a bit more than I did. As a big fan of Reichardt’s films in general, I was looking forward to this quite a bit. It may be though my least favourite of the bunch, but that by no means says it’s a bad film, just not quite as good as the previous three films. If you like creepy atmospheric slow paced gorgeously shot in Oregon kind of movies, you will dig this. Jesse Eisenberg is at his broodingest best, here, you barely ever see under his hooded eyes, he only ever really expresses emotions over the things he perceives with horror, like the dead deer he moves from the edge of the highway to save the dead doe the dignity of not getting run over again and again, at least. The basic plot has Jesse (as Josh, commu
Read more