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Mad Max Thread

skinny said:
Have you seen it yet, Myth? Anyway I'm inclined to agree.
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Not yet, which is why I didn't know whether or not the new film had the right 'characters' in it.
 
Charlie Theron kicking ass or Tina Turner as a leader in an apocalyptic future scenario?
This version is way more visceral, reduced and better for it.
 
Hey now, Tina Turner is fantastic in MMBT and proves she could have easily enjoyed a great acting career away from music.
 
skinny said:
Should have been Rusty Crowe ... though he did outmax Max as Maximus. The whole wife and kid butchered by scumbags and the vengeance thing. Still, I'd have enjoyed him more than Hardy as Rockatansky. Kiwi trumps a pom.
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There were times when I was watching scenes with Hardy was facing away from the camera, and I kind of expected to see Crowe's face when he turned round. Bit of a disappointment when it was still Hardy... But it would have to be the good Crowe that turned up - bit of a gamble.
 
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I can appreciate the sentiment of the headline, but I ran up hard against this quote: '“I kind of wonder if all these Mad Max movies made people more aware of how bad a nuclear war would actually be,” he says...' Maybe it's just me, but Bruce Spence lunging for the tin after Max's dog has finished licking it seems positively effete once you've seen the unremitting documentary-style horror of Threads or the War Game. Then again, the latter two make no bones about their purpose, I suppose, and there is probably not a 100% crossover between audiences for them and the Mad Max series, which purport to be action movies but, like the War Rig, carry unexpected freight.
 
This review is coming from quite a different standpoint to mine, but it raises an interesting point about genre conventions (we'll dismiss the fact that it rates 3 above 1 o_O) and the headline brought a begrudging smile to my lips, too. In particular, this argument has stuck in my mind.

If I had to put my finger on the one thing that disappointed me about Fury Road it was that it had a bit of superhero genre mixed in. In watching Road Warrior one feels concern for the protagonists and fear over their prospects. The villains are just real enough – one thinks that, yes, two years after the nukes fell and the gas ran out, the most brutal of the biker gangs and the renegade cops could have come to exactly this. In the first third of Road Warrior we see Humongous and his gang murder, rape, and loot outriders from the refinery camp, so we know exactly what they're capable of. Later, when our hero and his charges venture out into the wasteland and into conflict with the villains we know how it might very well end: the vehicles caught, destroyed, captives pulled out, brutally raped, and then crossbow-bolted when they're of no more use.

In contrast to this level of realism, Fury Road turns the dial one more, to eleven, for that push over the cliff. It was an inspired choice, in a way: I'm glad I saw these insane war rigs, I'm glad I saw the gouts of flame, the grenades, the spiked cars, the white skinned lunatics leaping off of moving vehicles to their certain deaths, and more. I've never seen anything like it before, and it was glorious.
...
The scale, the craziness, the everything – all at once, in every direction – is shocking, and aweing, and wonderful. …but because it's so much, and so hyper-real, the movie slips away from being a Western and into being a superhero movie. These villains are not what real biker gangs and real cops could have evolved into in the wasteland: these are comic book crazies. In the real world, no one would actually build these vehicles. No one would actually do these things. No one would actually set up this tribe or this economy.
...
In Fury Road, when Max is standing on top of a war rig hurtling through the desert I'm mostly curious as to what will explode next. There is not a moment of fear about the shear insanity of standing on top of a moving vehicle doing sixty over rough terrain. Think about that: if you're anything like me, just standing on top of the tanker would scare you to the point of needing new underwear. Yet in Fury Road none of it seems real. The violence was glorious and picturesque and insane…but not once was it scary. …because not once was it real.

Fury Road is a superhero movie.
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You just need to look at @skinny's avatar, and you remember that in MM2 people are fragile and get damaged when things go wrong. In FR, I have to agree with the reviewer, that sense of peril frequently seems almost absent, (which does make
Angharad's death
all the more unexpected and affecting).
 
Interesting review, Krepostnoi. I think the rebels in any film of this nature are ultimately working to escape the role their society has pinned them to. Here the rebels vs sycophants theme is really strong in the PA society. However, Max is as Max was - the ultimate lone wolf warrior and doesn't adhere to anything in terms of a social role at all. The only line of dialogue I remember, the only one of any worth in terms of a plot discussion regarding Max himself, is the first one - Max's disembodied narration to open the film:
I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead. Hunted by scavengers. Haunted by those I could not protect. So I exist in this Wasteland. A man reduced to a single instinct: survive."
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I look forward to a second instalment of this storyline, whatever it is.

On that, anybody giving credence to the idea that this film's Max is the Feral Kid from MM2 grown up? Here the theory gets a bit of attention. The common narration in MM2 and MM4 could hint at this (ie some suggest it is the same person). The music box appears among the maidens (remember how the Feral Kid is coddled by the women in the compound in MM2). I dunno. It's a stretch; maybe.
 
I like those kind of theories, true or not. Like the idea that Sean Connery's character in "The Rock" is actually James Bond, or that "The Prisoner" is a direct sequel to "Dangerman". In fact, there's a whole new thread idea right there...
 
Peripart said:
I like those kind of theories, true or not. Like the idea that Sean Connery's character in "The Rock" is actually James Bond, or that "The Prisoner" is a direct sequel to "Dangerman". In fact, there's a whole new thread idea right there...
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Or that all the Pixar movies occur in the same universe. (Blimey, the last time I looked, this didn't have its own website). Definitely worth a thread of its own, I'd say - go for it!
 
skinny said:
Interesting review, Krepostnoi. I think the rebels in any film of this nature are ultimately working to escape the role their society has pinned them to. Here the rebels vs sycophants theme is really strong in the PA society. However, Max is as Max was - the ultimate lone wolf warrior and doesn't adhere to anything in terms of a social role at all. The only line of dialogue I remember, the only one of any worth in terms of a plot discussion regarding Max himself, is the first one - Max's disembodied narration to open the film:

I look forward to a second instalment of this storyline, whatever it is.

On that, anybody giving credence to the idea that this film's Max is the Feral Kid from MM2 grown up? Here the theory gets a bit of attention. The common narration in MM2 and MM4 could hint at this (ie some suggest it is the same person). The music box appears among the maidens (remember how the Feral Kid is coddled by the women in the compound in MM2). I dunno. It's a stretch; maybe.
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I posted about this earlier but thought about the flash visions Max gets. They don't seem to be Feral Kid memories.
 
Good point. I doubt there's much cred to the theory at all, but wouldn't it be cool if it's accurate and Mel pops up in one of the sequels as a clapped out older Max? That would be a massive buzz right there.
 
skinny said:
Good point. I doubt there's much cred to the theory at all, but wouldn't it be cool if it's accurate and Mel pops up in one of the sequels as a clapped out older Max? That would be a massive buzz right there.
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Maybe hes gone over to the Dark Side and is leading a gang of nazi punks...
 
Maybe. Maybe he's part of a PA druidic cult living on wild honeys out at Crack In The Earth.

Leading? "No thanks. Got all I need right here. Good luck. Goodbye."

Max has always been on the Dark Side. Hence the "Mad".
skinny said:
I am the one who runs ... A man reduced to a single instinct: survive."
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skinny said:
Maybe. Maybe he's part of a PA druidic cult living on wild honeys out at Crack In The Earth.

Leading? "No thanks. Got all I need right here. Good luck. Goodbye."

Max has always been on the Dark Side. Hence the "Mad".
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Hey!

Mad is good!
 
So is the Dark Side. Ask Manny. He knows. He knows.

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Mel needs to return in some form. He burns up the screen. Even this little avatar <-- just oozes charisma and sex appeal. If he even shows his face in the next sequel, the viewing world will orgasm.

I honestly think the good Dr has Mel inside somewhere and he'll blow the audience mind when he rolls him out. You heard it here first.
 
These days, I think Mel is a bit of a tosser.
But yes, I agree with you. He has to be in another Mad Max film again, in some deprecated capacity (cameo or something).
 
Mel's Summer Vacation movie that was supposed to be his comeback (which apparently hardly anyone wanted) was surprisingly good. After all the horrible stories about him (I think he has a thread devoted to his prehistoric religious beliefs on here somewhere) I'm not sure how I feel about him aside from acknowledging he was a charismatic screen presence, as they say. Mad Max is about all I can tolerate him in unironically.
 
GNC said:
Mel's Summer Vacation movie that was supposed to be his comeback (which apparently hardly anyone wanted) was surprisingly good. After all the horrible stories about him (I think he has a thread devoted to his prehistoric religious beliefs on here somewhere) I'm not sure how I feel about him aside from acknowledging he was a charismatic screen presence, as they say. Mad Max is about all I can tolerate him in unironically.
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Loved him in The Patriot!
 
The Mad Max films and Conspiracy Theory I particularly enjoyed. Apocalypto also wasn't bad.
His other films, mostly 'meh'.
 
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