Mad Max: Fury Road

The first Mad Max film I ever saw was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, then Mad Max and then Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

I need to get this out of the way... there's a really, really dumb theory that Max in Fury Road is really... (groan)... the Feral Kid from Road Warrior... this doesn't make any sense due to the fact that the character himself said that he and the rest of the tribe went North to safety, grew to manhood and become the leader. So are these people trying to make it seem that the Feral Kid got bored being a tribe leader, decided to leave and... become a "road warrior" by calling himself Max Rockatansky, conveniently wears the same clothes, thick black stitching on the left shoulder (Bearclaw Mohawker damage from Mad Max 2), gets a leg brace on the left leg, and drives the same car???? From what I've heard George Miller himself said that it wasn't true.

• 9 Dumbest Movie Theories Ever
• "But fuck all that, cause I can't except two actors playing the same damn character!"

1979-2015

The 1st film is not without its problems and flaws since it was George Miller's first film he ever directed, but I like the relationship between Max, Jessie, Goose and Fifi Macaffee, there was a good buildup to care about them. It showed just how evil and insane the villains are and not just by killing the main character's friend and family, they killed and terrorized other people as well. Usually a revenge film kills off the family in the first act, but in the 1979 film it doesn't and it showed the kind of family man Max once was.

What can I say about the 2nd film, it's nearly a perfect sequel in the series, I say nearly because there are a few things I don't like what happens. I hate how they somehow thought that Max needed to wear a jacket with only one sleeve... he somehow ripped off his right jacket sleeve. He leaves the compound right in front of the gang, doesn't use his gun when they smash his windshield which runs him off the road (he was given functioning shotgun shells), gets his dog killed and his car destroyed. They needed a reason for Max to go back and drive the tanker... so they came up with that lame excuse.

The 3rd film on the other hand, it started out OK... but it just got weird and dumb after the fight in the Thunderdome. By the time Max is found by "Peter Pan's lost boys"... I can't watch the film anymore at that point. Once in a blue moon I can watch it from beginning to end. But the songs "One of the Living" and "We Don't Need Another Hero" are pretty good, they actually fit pretty well with scenes from Fury Road.

As for Max not saying all that much and was almost a background character in the 4th film, well after the first film Max was never meant to be the central protagonist, he's a character who always said very little, he's not the type to have character development, what happens is not really going to change who he is, so therefore the films (except the first one) don't focus that much on him. Since Max is a reluctant anti-hero who doesn't change, the real heroes or the heart of the story in Fury Road was Furiosa and the Wives, the same thing can be said in The Road Warrior with the Gyro Captain, Pappagallo and the rest of his people... and the kids... in Thunderdome... and that all seems to have been intentional.

Another thing people have criticized about the film is that when they find out that the green place no longer exist, Max talks them into going back to the Citadel since it has everything they need to survive and to make sure that they cut off the way there so Immortan Joe and his War Boys can't follow them. Given their options, what were they suppose to do? Wonder the wasteland until they found something?? They would have run out of gas, Max even tells them that there's nothing but salt.

One thing that films do too much these days is have slow talking dragged out scenes of explanatory exposition, Fury Road didn't suffer from that, instead it does that though the action and character motivation. I have given this a full 5 star rating, but that doesn't mean I think FR is perfect, any other film in the Mad Max series will not be able to top the 2nd film since it set the bra so high.

Nitpicks

A few lines of dialog or scenes would have helped to explain Immortan Joe's gas and bullet supplies and it would have been nice to hear the two main leads talk with Australian accents. I thought that the little girl he keeps seeing was suppose to be one of the kids he helped from Thunderdome since we're never told who she was in the film (the one next to Max's right arm).

• "You promised to help us, Max"
• "Why didn't you save us?"

As it turns out, she's called Glory the Child, she appears in the prequel comic book to Fury Road when Max learns that a child has been kidnapped. I'm not a fan of assuming that average moviegoers are going to pick up a comic book or novel in order to fill in the blanks that a film should have provided... because most of them don't.

There was a fan film in 2011... but it's pretty awful, the so-called actors can't act, the main lead playing Max looks like he's been eating too much fast food and his leather outfit looks like it barely fits him. He has those long silent stares that goes on just a few seconds too long and he just ends up looking like a retard. It makes no sense as to why he's still listening to the MPD dispatcher or has a badge or the blue police light siren, he's not with the police anymore at that point.

It tries to make Max into a vigilante, but he was not about avenging people, just survival, "Save it, I'm just here for the gasoline" and he only helped people when he got dragged into it. The couple he finds dead, or near death, the wife conveniently lives long enough to tell him what happen just before she dies... the dog he has in the 2nd film just shows up out of nowhere and just instantly decides to be with him... typical cliché Hollywood or fan fiction writing.

Furiosa

At first I thought that Furiosa was going to act like Jack from Mass Effect, but thank god that wasn't the case. She's tough but not a hardcore bitch 24/7, there not arguing, throwing insults at each other like Han and Leia from Star Wars. She's actually nice, Max and Furiosa don't start off on good grounds right away but that quickly changes and they work very well together. Also, thank god there was nothing going on between them.

Interviews

• Interview with Mad Max Fury Road director George Miller by Katherine Tulich
• George Miller talks Mad Max Fury Road (7.30 Australia)

A feminist Film???

I have to agree with user Walking-Maelstrom, I didn't see anything from beginning to end that made Fury Road a feminist film.

"You know people call this a feminist movie, I won't say it's a feminist movie."