|
Ricardo -> RE: Mad Max (Jun. 5 2024 15:45:20)
|
Ok, it has been 9 years and finally the next of supposedly 3 new Max films has come out, Furiosa. Spoiler ALERT if you want to see it first don’t read the following.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ok, it was long discussed and anticipated. Most of us wanted this Furiosa back story to come out much later (or never), as it was also proposed that Max with Tom Hardy would feature the Road Warrior in “The Wasteland”. It makes more sense to have reversed these stories, but too late now. But again a “prequel” using the same actors is always a bad idea because…you know….aging and entropy??[:D]
So as expected this Furiosa has divided the fans and while it is yet another exciting action packed car chase movie, the story is for me really badly thought out. You have to be super careful when doing a back story or prequel because you can’t rely on suspense of the main characters (we know pretty much their fate already), and of course continuity. We Gen Xers watch in horror as George Lucas proceeded to ruin his own amazing Star Wars story with careless writing of inferred previous Episodes. I don’t understand why the concept of Entropy and the arrow of time eludes these writers. What I see going on is that in the 80s, there were 3 amazing sequals created that fleshed out some original story idea with brilliant world building, and for whatever reason, modern movie making has tried in vain to recreate that type of success. It is all in the STORY that must be very carefully planned IMO. Those 3 films were Road Warrior, Empire Strikes Back, and Aliens. As sequels that are typically doomed to fall short, they are unique thanks to the excellent and careful writing that was so good, it spawned countless copies and adaptions and attempts at more. But it has all been very poor.
In hindsight the Fury Road story and film worked mainly because it is more like reboot of the original Road Warrior concept, and therefore contained too many obvious inconsistencies if taken as a sequel. That plus everyone was thirsty for a real movie vs the garbage that has been put out in the last two decades. So this recent attempt needed to be handled with care IMO, and it was not in terms of story. First her name….obvious a play on the “Fury Road” theme, but as a little girl? The fact she would have such a name literally makes zero sense. I guess if they could have shown her getting it as a nick name for being and angry kid or something, but that they named her that from birth is silly IMO. It gets worse from there in terms of believability akin the transformation of Anakin into Darth Vader. The main bad guy with his teddy bear was really not well done, nor that sinister (never saw Thor and realized the connection later, but I was like “why is this guy wearing a cape like a superhero?”). The fact he kills his own to trick the Gas Towners to open the gate was a weak way for us to consider the guy “evil” at all. The fact that worked well enough to do the Trojan horse thing was very weak. At least ripped from Road Warrior, which was a way more realistic scenario, such that it was real and scary and Wez had little chance to succeed and doesn’t….I could go on and on. But after they get in they don’t even bother to show how the heck they could take it over in Reality, which made it even LESS believable than it was already. Many details like that, and the fact the beautiful girl could hide out amongst all those men is silly, the Romance was not convincing, and therefore neither is her over the top revenge. The ONLY thing that saves this film for me is the fact that it, like all the Mad Max films after the first one, is framed in a Subjective narration subject to inconsistency as they are “stories” being told about loosely factual events (in the far future of course). So they are all permitted to exist as subjective view points in the same universe if you want. Using the same Rictus actor was really a poor decision, and Immortan Joe functioning as the “Good guy” sort of softens and confuses the entire Fury Road movie. The actress is great and does the best should could possibly do with the given material, and makes the film watchable. Too bad she is so pretty/feminine and short, but she sort of delivers the character toward the end as the tough androgynous Furiosa of Theron.
For what it is worth, Miller could have done way better by simply doing a SEQUEL to the Fury Road, such that Hardy as max has aged and has other adventures, for example he has no choice but to meet up again with Theron, who is the ruler of the Citadel after all, and Miller could keep his main ideas together perhaps showing flashbacks. Tons of potential to do a great story there, as the world has already been built. But I am afraid this film will have killed the franchise when the smoke clears. There were only 5 people including myself in the massive IMAX theater.
|
|
|
|
