Sometimes, I will see the first five minutes of a movie and know immediately that it will be a piece of work that I love. Of course, my intuition fails me on occasion and the film will fall short of the few minutes I feel for but Mad Max Fury Road kept up with the energy the opening scene promised.
Full disclosure: I am not a self-proclaimed fan of action movies. I like to think of myself as dialogue and story based so I was a bit hesitant when I heard that Fury Road was 2 hours of almost no dialogue. In fact, my interest in the movie wavered back and forth for years. When I first heard about the project in 2011 or early 2012, I was intrigued. As the production was delayed I forgot about it altogether. I was excited once more when a release date was put out but after a couple of years of reboots and remakes I didn’t quite know what to think of another sequel.
The first trailer put me off with its cuts every few seconds. To be honest, I thought it looked like a big, dumb, big-budget movie. My interest peaked again when I saw the posters for the film because the colouring in them looked so nice.
I decided to see the movie. I had seen road warrior and its aesthetic struck me as well as its pace, humour, and gorgeous desert setting. Oh boy, was Fury Road a treat.
This movie had everything that I liked about Mad Max 2 but bigger and done, in my opinion, better.
It had the feel of weird 80s movies but done with good effects, more money, a faster pace, and so much more adrenaline. I was reminded of Dune through the strange aesthetic of the characters except in this format it was fun and exciting instead of long and confused (sorry, Lynch).
George Miller was able to keep the essence of what makes Mad Max great using better resources and it turned out gorgeous and friggin’ thrilling, in all honesty. The world of Mad Max wasn’t watered down or bulked up but expanded. It’s still this weird, vehicle-based universe with its own rules and even its own slang. With mythology weaved in, feminism, and unbelievable action sequences Fury Road left wondering how anything is going to top this.
I could go on about how excited this made me and I could write more about how it reminded me of David Lynch but also Terry Gilliam (those spooky crows, right?) in a lighter, sort of more digestible format. This movie makes me want to talk, and discuss, and boy do I hope it does the same for others.
Note: anyone else get really excited when Tom Hardy put on the jack about halfway through the movie? I just felt like at that moment he had earned it, Tom Hardy is the Road Warrior.
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