movies: mad max: fury road

I've only ever seen bits and pieces of the previous three Mad Max movies... they never really appealed when I was younger, and then I lost interest in anything related to Mel Gibson.

Fortunately knowledge of the previous movies is not required to watch Mad Max: Fury Road.

To be honest, I'm not even sure that sound is required to be able to watch this movie.

What little dialogue there is is essentially inconsequential, in fact the titular Max only says a handful of things. So much so that there were several times that I wanted to scream "USE YOUR WORDS" at the screen.

And weirdly, Tom Hardy doesn't seem to be able to decide on an accent throughout the movie... there are a couple of lines towards the beginning that sound authentically Australian, but then it does seem to waiver all over the place.

My main problem with the movie though is that I didn't really care about the characters... partly because I didn't know anything about any of them, especially their motivations, but even the names of a lot of them and partly because some of the characters you're supposed to care about weren't particularly likeable. So not caring about the characters meant that I didn't really care what happened to them, which meant that I really wasn't all that engaged during the action scenes.

And given the fact that this movie is essentially one long action scene, that does present something of a problem.

The "second half" was better than the first though... both from an action perspective and a character perspective.

The movie does prove something I've known about Nicholas Hoult for a while now... it doesn't matter if you make him blue and furry... or turn him into a zombie... or shave his head, paint him white and strip him to the waist... he's still a very attractive man. I think it's those big eyes.

Speaking of attractive, there is a lot about this movie that is absolutely beautiful... from the cinematography to the production design to the costumes, it's definitely a visual feast. Just the designs of all the Frankencars alone are a site to see. And knowing that about 80% of the movie is practical effects given the stunts and just the sheer number of risky things that happen makes it even more amazing.

I do feel like it's a little bit style over substance though... it's pretty, sure, but I did find it more than a bit lacking in, you know, story and character.

yani's rating: 2 war boys out of 5