Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Mastermind: George Miller
Writers:        George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nico Lathouris
Cast:             Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult

In a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, two rebels just might be able to restore order: a man of action and of few words, and Furiosa, a woman of action who is looking to make it back to her childhood homeland.

So, in the fourth installment of the franchise, Max is captured and ends up as a universal blood donor prisoner of the dictator/Godman Immortan Joe. His blood is used by Kamikaze soldiers who always talk about Valhalla and greets death with glee which kind of makes them Jihadists of sorts. Joes's place is called Citadel that contains a water source which the Lord controls and markets as Aqua Cola. Furiosa smuggles the young wives of the dictator on a supply run during which she takes a detour to her homeland called Green Place. All hell breaks loose and Joe and his entire band of soldiers, with his metal band  featuring a fire breathing guitar/ist, chase them and the film is just that- a very long chase and maybe they should have called it Mad Max: There and Back Again. During the chase, Max ends up in Furiosa's war rig and at first they don't trust each other but eventually becomes a team along with Max's blood recipient Nux (Nicholas Hoult). 

Film is two hours long which makes it about 30 minutes longer than other Mad Max films. It is in 3D, of which I am not a fan, but it didn't bother me much. There are some scenes which makes you flinch covering your face with hands. I wish it was a bit less dark so that I could enjoy fully the Namibian desert where they shot the film. It is the best of what you expect from a Mad Max film and leave you with giddy smiles plenty of times during the film. Charlize Theron is really the lead of the film, with it having a feminist approach, and that is a breath of fresh air when you put it in context with other shitty action films from recent times where the role of female character is often  restricted to being an eye-candy damsel in distress. Charlize Theron is almost unrecognizable with her military hairstyle and Tom Hardy is fantastic as Mad Max with him giving his own interpretation for the role rather than aping Mel Gibson. 

What I found great about Mad Max 2 (Road Warrior) and Mad Max 3 (Beyond the Thunderdome) were the presence of very morally ambiguous villains and in second one we cannot really call them villains even. That is not the case in Fury Road with Immorten Joe being a ruthless dictator but his followers are more like misguided followers. The action sequences are just insane and it was done apparently done with minimal usage of CGI. That is essential for you to actually enjoy the action since you know that some actual physical effort was put into the whole thing. At the end of the grueling shoot, they had 450 hours of footage and it took 6000 hours of editing to come up with the final cut. Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron were at loggerheads during the shoot and the former was also unhappy with Miller as how the film would end up was not something that Miller could explain properly. But it seems everyone is happy with the end product and it is getting universal acclaim. One minor complaint would be that they changed the side of the steering wheel so as not to spook the American audience.

Overall it a fantastic action film and please don't miss it out during its theatrical run. George Miller is now 70 and he had directed films like Happy Feet during the time period between Thunderdome and Fury Road. It is good to see him back in the action genre putting younger generation directors in their place. (Trivia: After George Miller screened some footage at SXSW film festival, a man stood up and asked: "How the hell did you film that!?" That man was none other than director Robert Rodriguez.) It is as good as Mad Max: The Road Warrior, but I still consider Road Warrior as my favorite out of the lot since it is much more balanced. The first Mad Max film has not aged very gracefully while the third one is a good watch without being great. You don't really need to watch previous ones to enjoy Fury Road and a peek at the trailer would suffice to prepare yourself for what is to come.

Rating: 4.5/5    

                                                                       

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Director: George Miller
Writers:  Terry Hayes, George Miller
Cast:       Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Bruce Spence

A former Australian policeman is rescued by a tribe of children when he is banished from a desert town and sent into the desert by the desert town's evil queen (Tina Turner). This is the third installment in the Mad Max trilogy featuring Mel Gibson as the title character. Unlike in the earlier films, there is a semblance of order with the desert queen having brought a justice system in the town she had established. But the energy with which it is run is based on pig-shit and is handled by MasterBlaster. She kills Blaster with the help of Max and aims to control the Master. Max aims to help the tribe who rescued him by rescuing Master from the desert town.

The films begins with a bang and has great humor in the 'Hans Solo' mode. The middle third of it is attritional with George Miller having some fun with the idea of a backward tribe waiting for their messiah based on what they have deduced from things from the past. The last third film of the film features the obligatory kickass chase sequence and this time it involves a train. It is the only film out of the three that has a PG-13 rating while the other two are R-Rated. The fourth one that is coming out this year starring Tom Hardy, Fury Road, is also rated R. From the trailer I have seen of it, the story part seems fine with a very good cast but the action sequences seems very CGIed. What makes action sequences great in the Mel Gibson Mad Max films are their grittiness and the realism of the chase sequences and CGI won't make it exciting in any way whatsoever. Add to that it doesn't look any more realistic than the original ones. You are not going to be very excited if you know that they are doing is in front of a green Screen. To add insult to injury, it will be released in 3-D. Looks very much like a money-grab exercise.

As for Mad Max 3, it sits between 2 and 1 in terms of quality with second one being the best out of the three. The difference in quality between the films are quite large. Even though 'Beyond the Thunderdome', at 107 minutes, is not that longer compared to 'Road Warrior' but it does feel so which is never a good thing for a straight up action film. The standout feature of the third film is its humor compared to the other two even though it is a bit uneven. Like the second film, the antagonist characters are also very rational in their actions and not cartoonish. Overall it is a good watch without being anywhere near as good as the second one or anywhere near as bad as the first one. It was made with a budget of $12 million and grossed around $35 million, making it the least successful out of the three. Fury Road's budget is a whopping $150 million and I can see it being a disaster at the box office since many of the viewers will be coming with no knowledge about the franchise.

Rating: 3/5

                                                                      

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Director: George Miller
Writers:  Terry Hayes, George Miller, Brian Hannant
Cast:       Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston

In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline rich, community escape a band of bandits. The film begins with an explanation on how the apocalypse came about, which was not done in the first Mad Max film, and how Max became 'Mad' by giving a synopsis of what happened in the first film. Funny thing is that the synopsis was all we needed instead of the shitfest that was the first film. To be fair, the success of it was what generated the sequel which is vastly better than the former. I don't think I have seen another franchise in which there is such a vast difference in terms of quality, in a good way, between the first film and the second. 

Mad Max 2 is everything that Mad Max 1 is not. It comes with vastly superior characters, coherent plot which is engagingly slow-burn, superior writing despite minimal dialog (only 16 lines for Mad Max), on-screen violence and a  jaw-dropping set-piece at the end. The much higher budget is very well used and the widescreen cinematography is exquisite. As for the title character, Max, he is not much different from the first film and maybe he is slightly more anarchic and cynical. The 'Mad' bit in his name is an oxymoron since he is totally logical in his actions considering the circumstances. The bad guys in the film is also vastly better with perfectly logical reasons for their behavior. One could even question whether they are that bad at all. They just want some gasoline whereas the people whom Max is helping are hoarding the oil at a facility that they are protecting and they want to take some of it to go 2000 miles north where it is much more inhabitable. On the way out they are planning to destroy the facility which is kind of a dick move from their part. It can of course be seen as a metaphor for the big oil companies (seven sisters) who extracts everything from places like Africa leaving the natives without anything good. 'Seven Sisters' reference is thrown in the film with it being the logo of the tanker with which final escape is made. The Feral kid who doesn't utter a single line in the film is also particularly great and he could be very much in the new Mad Max film that is coming out later this year with Tom Hardy. I am totally excited about that now. 

Film was made on a budget of A$4.5 million, ten times that of the first one, but was not as successful as the first one because of a botched up release. It still made considerable amount of money, $35 million, but that should be put into context of first film making $100 million. First one was made in 1979 but had only got a limited release in US close to the time second one got released. So they went with the title Road Warrior, dropping Mad Max from it, so as not to confuse people and underestimating its popularity in North America. So many in US didn't even realize that it was a sequel to the original Mad Max since the brief black & white shots from the first one in it is quite easy to miss. 

Overall it is a great watch and I would recommend people who are planning to get into Max Max films to skip the first film and go directly to watch this one. The third one is supposed to be not this good but I am certainly gonna watch it since it cannot be any worse than the first film. It being PG-13 is a huge turn-off though. There is a strange and uneasy eroticism to the whole thing which is also true for the first film. Mad Max 2: Road Warrior is certainly one of the best in this genre and the soundtrack reminded me of one used in Matrix Reloaded during that famous freeway chase sequence. Film is not all about Mel Gibson and rest of the cast are also good. Another great thing about Max in this is that he is not 'always right in decision-making' kind of lead and is prone to fuck-ups from his side also.

Rating: 4.5/5

                                                                      

Mad Max (1979)

Director: George Miller
Writers:   James McCausland, George Miller, Byron Kennedy
Cast:        Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, High Keays-Byrne

A vengeful Australian policeman sets out to avenge his partner, his wife and his son in a dystopian setting. The bad guys are a biker-gang and as the poster says-it stars Mel Gibson and a bunch of other guys. It was made for a budget of A$400,000 and made $100 million at the box office and held the record for being the most profitable film for twenty years, which it eventually passed onto Blair Witch Project, and thus spawning the Mad Max Franchise.

It is basically the origins story of what turned out to be a franchise. The plot is laughably basic and writing is absolute cringe. I almost resorted to fast forwarding through the film by about forty five minutes but at that point it kind of became a little bit coherent and I sat through the film. I read somewhere that the Australian voices were dubbed over with a much more US accent for its US release and the former is supposed to be miles better. I am not hundred percent sure as to whether I watched the Australian version but it did sound so even though the audio was out of sync. That might be more to do with the file that I watched which was very small for a x264. The action scenes are very well done in terms of how they were shot and most of the violence is off-screen. But those things don't quite salvage the film for me as the acting is laughably bad even from Mel Gibson, for whom it was a breakthrough role. I understand it is not about acting, characters, writing etc but watching it is a real slog.

Another one in the Mad Max franchise is coming out this year titled 'Fury Road'. It is directed by George Miller, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, and the visuals indeed look stunning from the trailer. Out of the Mel Gibson films, the second one in the series titled 'Road Warrior' is supposed to be the best and I am gonna give it a chance even though I absolutely hated the first one. Hopefully bigger budget and better writing means a far better film.

Rating: 1.5/5