Another cool note, the film was "written" as 3,500 storyboard panels rather than/before a screenplay.

As for the Rotten Tomatoes wanking above - can we give the film hierarchy/ranking worship a rest? What does "better" even mean? For the record, sure, I probably enjoyed Fury Road more than Memento, on multiple levels. If you disagree, great! Live your life!

5/18/2015 7:15:55 PM

saw it, it was awesome

5/20/2015 10:06:34 AM

Saw it. Face was melted off from the pyro. Actually, I think that in terms of actual pyro and practical effects that this must be the best thing since TDK.

Something about the plot though is just bugging me, because it is not a film about Max. Mad Max is playing a supporting role here. It is almost as if the production crew looked at the original, and because of the risk of having another "guy saves damsel in distress" film, they just insisted that a major female lead be placed in the film.

But, having said that, the tug-a-war between the two to become the main lead made me feel like I was watching two slightly different versions of the same movie at the same time.



[Edited on May 20, 2015 at 6:38 PM. Reason : a]

5/20/2015 6:31:22 PM

I'm struggling to see how any of what you described is a problem. The movie is about a female escape from/uprising in a patriarchal system. A major plot thread is the give and take between Max and Furiosa, and how they slowly gain each other's respect through action. All of this felt completely organic, expertly plotted and depicted, and not at all tacked on or crudely "placed in," to me at least.

And even with the focus on Furiosa and the ladies, Max still seems to have maybe the most solid character arc of the film, in how he starts off this angsty loner on the run and ends up giving himself (and his blood) to this cause.

This was my read anyway!

[Edited on May 20, 2015 at 9:04 PM. Reason : .]

5/20/2015 9:03:38 PM

I guess it is best to say that all of the great action movies typically have one, identifiable but yet flawed hero that ends up committed to sacrifice and perseverance during the movie's final climax. For whatever reason, in this film it just seemed like they couldn't decide who was going to be this Rock of Gibraltar so to say, and they just kept going back and forth between the two instead of sticking to one primary "hero" to develop.

Just look at last year's Edge of tomorrow, which featured both a strong female lead and a male lead that went through enormous amounts of character development. Since they so brilliantly developed Rita's character as the main hero of the film, her sacrifice at the end of the movie just brought an enormous amount of closure to her struggles and her long fight against the enemy. In Mad Max, however, I just feel like neither one of the characters was that well developed because they couldn't decide who they wanted the hero to be. So the ending inevitably didn't carry enough emotional weight to me as it could have.

This is just being a bit picky though. The film was great and there were lots of good character arcs as you have said. But, I just wish that they would have consolidated the 'hero' attributes to one person, a true imitatio christi so to say.

5/21/2015 1:48:52 PM

MEDIOCRE!

5/21/2015 6:54:19 PM

^^ The lack of real fleshing out of the characters probably contributes to your points. Not enought dialogue etc.

5/21/2015 9:26:27 PM

I think Max is better as a supporting or secondary character anyway IMO. He's kind of the enigmatic force of nature helping to drive someone else's narrative.

Quote :

"So, I haven't seen Age of Ultron yet either, and if I got a chance to see one, should it be this movie or Ultron? I really want to see both, but that much time in a theater just isn't in the cards for me."

While I think you should see both, it really depends on how much you care about the MCU. If you love Marvel I'd see Ultron first, if you just like the Marvel movies because they are entertaining action movies I'd see Mad Max.

Ultron is confusing, complicated, somehow either too long or too short (It should have either cut some of the sidestories completely or added on to them to make them more coherent) and some critics have dinged it justifiably for focusing more on worldbuilding for the larger universe than telling a self contained story (fortunately for me I love that stuff, but I understand why some are turned off by it)

Mad Max is a simpler story, with little dialogue and a plot that mostly serves to tie action scenes together, but those action scenes are some of the best I've ever seen and the plot is good enough to make you care about the characters.

Quote :

"Exactly, thus meaning it should be a better movie."

Uh, no. It just means it was less divisive. The main score of rotten tomatoes is pretty much only an indicator of whether the movie is worth watching.

Rotten Tomatoes main score does not differentiate between a movie that 95% of critics thought was an entertaining popcorn flick and 5% didn't care for, and a movie that 95% of critics thought was the best film of the decade and 5% didn't care for.

A better indicator of pure movie quality (at least among critics) is the average rating, which is buried up in the top part in small font. To compare 2 of the 99s you picked out
Selma - Average Rating: 8.7/10
Godfather 2 - Average Rating: 9.4/10

5/21/2015 11:01:52 PM

I'm going to check this movie out tonight.

5/22/2015 6:15:14 PM

This movie was horrible and I can give you the entire plot in a sentence.

Drive to a place that doesn't exist then turn around and go back to where you came from.

If I wasn't watching it in 3D I would have fallen asleep. Very little dialog, no sex and the plot was almost non existent. Unless you are a fan of watching salt flat races I would avoid this movie at all cost.

Great special effects does not equal a good movie.

4/10

I feel like over the past ~5-10 years TV shows have surpassed movies in quality.



[Edited on May 23, 2015 at 7:52 PM. Reason : _]

5/23/2015 7:42:17 PM

THE SEX SLAVES RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES DON'T HAVE SEX FOR ME AT ANY POINT

D- WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

5/23/2015 8:01:53 PM

^^

^

5/23/2015 9:40:54 PM

how DARE you eye-roll my text-based eye-roll

5/23/2015 10:19:49 PM

A troll trying to troll a troll who is trolling

5/23/2015 10:42:20 PM

Trolling or not, blackdog's review was funny. And a little on point. The sex slaves were a little underdeveloped.

5/24/2015 7:43:32 AM

I just like it when action films have a flawed, and at times a vulnerable hero that gets pushed to his/her limits but ends up doing everything necessary at the end to get themselves out of shitty situations. Take JCVD for example, this action film is unlike any other Van Damme movie ever made, and it is by far his best ever performance to date. The reason is that he doesn't play this bulked up superhero or unstoppable force, he instead plays a man that is broken down by money issues, losing a custody battle for his child, and is losing roles in action films to his competitors. He goes into a bank to pick up a wire that he desperately needs to pay off his lawyers, and it turns out that the bank is being robed. And then BOOM, now your vulnerable hero is being constantly beaten on by thieves and gunmen that serve as the physical sort of symbolic force of bad luck that is just raining down on him in his life. Due to his celebrity status, he ends up being the only hope for the people in that building, and he eventually gets them out alive. That's what I would call an amazing plot for an action film.

In Mad Max, however, they just split the hero role into two people. Max is the guy that gets beaten down on all the time, but Furiosa is the one that has the necessary character development. She never really seems to be in that much danger until the very end. This means that max being beaten down on throughout the movie, and her eventual act at the end, just didn't cary the emotional punches that it could have if they had stuck to the iconic roles better, as was done in movies like Speed and Edge of Tomorrow.

Just sayin...

5/24/2015 9:19:44 AM

Nobody cared when you made that exact post earlier in the thread

5/24/2015 2:33:20 PM

^^^^yes

5/24/2015 5:25:22 PM

whoops too many centipedes

[Edited on May 24, 2015 at 5:25 PM. Reason : .]

5/24/2015 5:25:22 PM

Quote :

"Nobody cared when you made that exact post earlier in the thread"

5/25/2015 11:45:13 AM

people cared, and this time around I was more thorough with my analysis. If you have something to contribute then go ahead, but so far it is me pwning bitches in movie threads (as usual).

5/25/2015 11:51:43 AM

dont think anyone cared...which is why no one responded

5/25/2015 4:49:16 PM

I feel like the entire look of the film was ripped off from "California Love" by Tupac.

5/25/2015 5:10:54 PM

i count at least 4 responses.

^I hope that you are trolling, because he (Pac) blatantly stole that look from Miller's earlier Mad Max work.



[Edited on May 25, 2015 at 6:41 PM. Reason : n]

5/25/2015 6:38:49 PM

I like it. I'll probably own it. I didn't like the little love story between the red headed girl and ol buddy. But whatever. I love the set pieces and we should give more props to the stunt people. They actually do all the work. I thought the movie would be strong in metaphor but it's pretty straight forward.

5/25/2015 11:01:14 PM

BanjoMan bringing the racism ITT.

5/26/2015 7:39:07 AM

^^I'm probably forgetting a makeout session or something, but I thought they were going for more of a mother/son thing. At least, that fits in better of the overall theme.

5/26/2015 8:21:31 AM

^^ This is public knowledge cracka. They shot the video in an actual set piece used by Miller in Thunderdome.

5/26/2015 1:40:53 PM

Quote :

"This movie was horrible and I can give you the entire plot in a sentence. Drive to a place that doesn't exist then turn around and go back to where you came from."

Worst movie I've paid to see this year.

5/26/2015 7:38:34 PM

Quote :

"I can give you the entire plot in a sentence."

That makes it way better.

5/27/2015 12:53:31 AM

5/27/2015 9:06:20 AM

lol

Me and the girlfriend cracked up each time they pulled out that spray.

5/28/2015 9:45:30 AM

^ This

5/28/2015 9:55:12 AM

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-lessons-all-movies-should-learn-from-mad-max/

5/28/2015 10:22:06 AM

Im just going to pick this out because fuck transformers

Quote :

"And here's where the apologists come in: "Who cares about that shit? These movies are all about balls-to-the-wall action!" But that's clearly not how it works, and you fucking know it, you goddamn liar. Revenge Of The Sith had more balls-to-the-wall action in the opening sequence than most other movies, but no one remembers it because it never felt real. There was no weight to any of it. It's the same problem with the Transformers movies: Way more stuff gets blown up, but none of it matters because none of it seems to impact the plot."

And fuck the prequels

5/28/2015 1:06:49 PM

I've seen this movie 5 times in the theaters now, and I'll probably go back for sixths and sevenths. There is very little about this movie that isn't awesome, and it is easily one of the best movies I've seen in many years. If you're oversimplifying the film to just be "Mad and Co. drive somewhere and then drive back", then not only have you completely missed the point, you have also missed all of the vast subtleties that lie in the context of this film, and/or you just don't care which, in this case, would make your opinion very hard to take seriously. There is definitely a story being told here, and the beauty of it is that the director has the respect to not explicitly spoon-feed every little detail to the audience. Granted, it is hard to notice the subtleties of the plot when there is so much balls-out action on the screen. It easily could have been another mindless action flick, but make no mistake; these subtleties are there if you look for them. The attention to detail not just makes the visual presentation amazing, but makes the world itself extremely compelling and cohesive in the greater whole of the story being told.

I could go on and on about this film, but I'm not. I'll just say this: it is exceedingly rare for a director from the golden age of action (the 1980's, because come on now) to put out a movie in this day and age, and furthermore it is even rarer for said movie to not be a steaming pile of ass. It is even rarer for said film to be a continuation of a decades-dormant franchise, and even more impossibly rare for said film to be the best film in its series (which I believe Fury Road is). A film like this in these terms is unlikely to ever happen again. Understand that, go see it, and revel in your time. Leave it to one of the old masters to come back and show everyone how its done.

6/4/2015 12:30:13 AM

Quote :

"I've seen this movie 5 times in the theaters now, and I'll probably go back for sixths and sevenths."

Godspeed Sir.

6/4/2015 12:51:03 AM

if you watch it an 8th time you finally see Mel and Tina

6/4/2015 12:52:09 AM

Heres the movie in a few sentences since its so deep.

Mad gets captured and is a blood bag. 1 armed woman steals the leaders sex slaves, max and co give chase, max and his blood daddy switch sides, they drive to a place that doesn't exist, they turn and drive back to where they started. A bunch of people die.

MEDIOCRE

6/4/2015 9:18:31 AM

^ And I had a top 15 movie experience ever while that happened.

6/4/2015 9:26:10 AM

I really enjoyed it for its action and story telling minus extraneous dialog. That said, I've heard a few people talk about how rich the story was. While it wasn't "expendables level dumb" like a lot of action films I wouldn't say that it was good drama-level story. The story was simple but good and had some subtleties which I enjoyed.

I've read a few reviews that agree with other folks in the thread that there isn't enough back story to REALLY care about the characters or understand their exact motives.

6/4/2015 9:46:43 AM

I enjoyed its simplicity.

Its impressive how pure of an action film it is. It gets rid of all fat, including as much action as possible without exhausting the audience.

6/4/2015 9:50:21 AM

Top 15???? you must not see many movies in theaters.

6/4/2015 10:19:47 AM

You can laugh all you want about how many times I've seen the film, you guys are the ones missing out on one of the greatest action movies of this generation

6/5/2015 2:19:45 AM

^^Who are you to judge his personal experiences? lol

6/5/2015 3:33:25 AM

Quote :

"Heres the movie in a few sentences since its so deep."

You can sum up any movie in a few sentences and make it sound trivial.

Farmboy finds some robots who lead him to a mysterious old man. Relatives get slaughtered so old man trains boy to become a warrior. Teams up with a rogue pilot, fly to a place that doesn't exist, rescue a princess, then save the galaxy. A bunch of people die.

6/5/2015 8:57:45 AM

Innocent man goes to prison for killing his wife, gets raped, befriends a black guy, digs a hole and escapes.

6/5/2015 9:26:54 AM

During WWII, soldiers go rescue a guy whose brothers died.

Twitter had a great meme where people did this in a funny way such as

Quote :

"Groundhog Day (1993): A woman sleeps with her asshole coworker after he's nice for a single day"

-@UniqueDude2 (first I could find)

[Edited on June 5, 2015 at 9:40 AM. Reason : A]

6/5/2015 9:32:41 AM

Man dies, whispers one word. We eventually find out that its a sled.

6/5/2015 9:53:45 AM

6/5/2015 12:16:41 PM