An brilliant action movie that forgot how to action movie.
Allow me to first preface my spiel by saying that this movie should never have been what it is. Fury Road might just be a one in a lifetime experience, a lining up of planets sort of scenario for cinema.
First off, in any other alternate dimension George Miller would have been laughed out of the studio head’s office and replaced by a hot up-and-coming or Abrams-like go-to director to film their potential cash cow. The man had his original three Mad Max, then Happy Feet, Happy Feet Two and Babe: Pig in the City on his resume. Studio’s make art but their goal is income, so they always look for big names and to follow proven formulas to bring home the bacon.
Combine the raising of Miller’s career from the dead with his insane methods of storytelling, social commentary, his unorthodox –well everything, and Mad Max is truly on par with Haley’s Comet.
Now, how did Millar achieved this miracle? Simply put, he threw away the rule book.
No longer did his lead actor need to be a hero, a savior, or even a protagonist. No longer did the leading lady specifically require the man to achieve her goals. No longer did a beautiful world need every detail paired with boring exposition like a dusty museum plaque explaining exactly what you’re looking at.
He also believed this could all take place during a giant 2-hour long car chase with non-stop, I dare you to try and take a breath, cranked to 11, action.
Perhaps my favorite part of the film is that Mad Max is the main character, but not necessarily does that make him the protagonist. He is not a champion to a specific cause, Furiosa is the inertia of the film. She is our protagonist, only her and the four women she is trying to bring to freedom are agents of change in this story. That’s not to say that Max is taking a back seat to this picture, he and Furiosa rely on each other equally for survival plain and simple. They work with each other’s strengths, but when it comes down to it, he’s the shoulder the gun rests on and she’s the one firing it.
Max’s role is simply to be our point of view. He, like the audience, is pulled into this insane environment with no explaining of what’s going on, and it’s brilliant. The world is so well built that you don’t need anything spelled out, you either can piece it together or you’re subtly clued in, but it, like the desert it’s comprised of, is unforgiving. Mad Max does not had a 30 minute first act to explain the situation, this is a masterclass of a film on showing and not telling. You hit the ground running and don’t look back, if you miss a clue, then oh well. And oh my god it is so refreshing.
The action. Yes, there were big explosions and cars being flipped and rammed into each other, but this was a stunt coordinators wet dream. This is how I imagine it went down at the studio:
“The film is 120 minutes and you have 90% of that to make the most batshit crazy awesome car chase ever filmed on screen. Oh and you have hundreds of vehicles to work with that are chasing them. Have fun.”
*stunt coordinator tears up while walking out the door*
“Wait, come back. Here’s more money.”
*stunt coordinator collapses into pool of his own tears*
Needless to say, the man did his job. But, the most important thing in terms of action is not how incredibly remarkable set-piece after set-piece was. The most impressive piece to this was how it was all filmed. With cinematography rivaling beauties like Skyfall, Mad Max made the most out of it’s locations and it’s sets. Every piece of rusted metal or speck of sand was included in the shot in a way to finish telling the story, to breathe life into this world. Even amidst the chaotic action, the beauty was not lost and notably nor were the viewers.
Lately, action movies have run the shaky-cam style into the ground. To essentially grab the audience by the shoulders and shake them whilst asking if they know what’s going on is bullshit. Between shaky-camera work and the 1.5 second maximum action film makers allow per shot, it’s a miracle anyone ever know’s whats going on.
Mad Max both separates itself from and accepts this rule of thought by doing the most important thing in film: making sure the viewers can see what the fuck is going on.
There is no shaky cam, but there are incredibly quick shots, but you know happened in each and everyone one of them because the action was already directed to the center of the shot. Ground breaking right? Fury Road doesn’t allow the audiences eyes to wander around and try to figure out where to rest them or find where the action is. Each cut is framed to allow your eyes to rest in the middle and voila the action comes to you. I’m looking at you Transformers.
Mad Max: Fury Road does everything the modern school of action movies tells it to do, but it tears out pages of the book that don’t work and writes notes over what’s salvageable. Hopefully by proving the doubters wrong we’ll see a new, better breed of action films on the horizon.
If you took our two good male characters Max and Nux out of the movie, Furiosa and the girls (and to a lesser extent the Vuvalini) would still have motivations and character development and narrative arcs. But if you took the women out of the movie, the men aren’t left with a plot of their own. THIS IS INCREDIBLE TO COMPREHEND. I have spent complete minutes lost in wonder at how rare this is to find in any movie, especially a big explosiony one. Without Furiosa, without the women she is freeing and the women she is returning to, who raised her to be the woman she is, this movie just does not exist.
Megan Gale, who played the Valkyrie, was previously cast as Wonder Woman in George Miller’s film Justice League: Mortal before it was canceled. This is her first Hollywood movie
“What was great about this is that the luxury of a love story was not where we were, I mean they can’t even talk to each other. We never even talked about it – it was never there, no one said ‘maybe’, we never had to fight against it. It
was always going to be two warriors on par, starting off with very
little respect for each other and ending up with a massive respect for
each other.” – Charlize Theron (x)
icymi – Tom Hardy talking about female action heroes
“It’s about time you had better female leads in action movies. This is not a feminist argument, it’s a person-hood situation. This is how we ought to reflect the times — not so much strong women, but just people. You know, you have a male and a female who are both just person-hood situations on both sides of the gender. I wouldn’t put it past George to come up with a transgender [hero], do you what I mean? He’s not the type of person who’s going to mince his words.“
“This is how we ought to reflect the times — not so much strong women, but just people.”
“I think that’s very, very smart of [George Miller] to deliver a female lead in Max Max. I remember talking to George back in Namibia about old school movie star, male-female chemistry. How does the dynamic work between a strong alpha-male and a strong alpha-female on screen when you get them together. And for me personally it’s very important that one has to yield to the other to understand who’s going to team lead — who’s going to alpha and who’s going to bravo, as it were, in sort of a military sense.”
“You would’ve thought that a man’s man is this and a woman’s woman is that, but none of that actually exists in a partnership where you have the chemistry between a leading man and a leading female. And I think in this one as well, Charlize led this entire movie and it shows on screen and you can see it quite clearly. One has to yield to that. Because if you fight it, you get malleted.”
I wasn’t even surprised to find out that the old ladies in Fury Road did their own wildly dangerous stunts because honestly most of the old men I know are like “I just want to wear high-waisted trousers and take a nap" but most of the old ladies I know are like “I’M NINETY THREE YEARS OLD HERE COMES THE HURRICANE”
World building:
‘I am one of the Vuvalini’
‘Of the Many Mothers’
‘My Initiate Mother was Katie Concannon’
‘I am the daughter of Mary Jo Bassa’
‘My clan was Swaddle Doll[Dog?]’
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN? HOW ARE THE VUVALINI ORGANISED? IN LIEU OF PATRIARCHY DO THEY HAVE MATRIARCHY OR IS IT TECHNICALLY SORORITY INSTEAD AND IF SO HOW IS IT STRUCTURED? WHAT IS AN INITIATE MOTHER???? IS THAT A MENTORING ROLE?? WHAT WERE THE OTHER CLANS NAMED??
[thrashes around in world building glee]
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