Mad Max Fury Road

So, a bunch of guys at work decided we should go and see the new Mad Max movie. I had some misgivings but ignored them for the purposes of being sociable. Also, I figured that although it may be a bit dumb, or a bit you go grrrlish it was also meant to be an awesome action roller coaster ride which might offset those problems.

Boy was I wrong. If you want to know exactly what Mad Max Fury Road is about without wasting two hours of your life then please do read on. Or, in other words:

(SYNOPSIS, COMMENTARY AND MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW)

I just watched Mad Max Fury Road in 3D on the big VMAX screen. It was the first time I had ventured out to an actual cinema in at least two years. I hoped it would be at least acceptable, instead I found that I absolutely hated it. I hated it enough to bother wrting this, my first ever movie review. It was so bad that by the time that we got to the second half of the film I was actually wishing it would end.

First, the good bits:

The cars were great. The guy that was in charge of designing and building them did a great job (mostly, see below). The crazy guitar cum flame thrower "Amp" truck was a hoot. Hugh Keays-Byrne's triple stacked monstrosity was also great, as was his make up and costume. The set for the bandit base was good but was only used for minutes. Although in hindsight I have decided that it may not have been a set, and was probably mostly CGI. It was still fun nonetheless. 

The rest of this feminist pandering travesty was absolutely woeful.

It started well enough, a shot of Max looking over a vista of the wasteland with his faithful "Last of the V8 Interceptors" by his side. I was stoked at that point. After the totally awful, Ewok children filled, Interceptor-less Thunderdome debacle I was excited to see Max re-united with his "partner" at long last. (Yes, I am aware that the Interceptor was destroyed in Mad Max 2 but you could argue that this movie was set in the period between 1 and 2 so it is all good. I am not incapable of rationalising away stupidity if it is worthwhile for me to to do so).

Unfortunately, 30 seconds later, Max rolls the Interceptor and is captured by bandits. Oh well, I thought, maybe he'll get out of this scrape, find his car and roar off, leaving a cloud of fumes and dust in the faces of his pathetic captors.

Well, no actually. It turns out that this movie is an even worse, Ewok child Tank Girl dominated, Interceptor-free feminist fantasy tale.

After Max's thwarted attempt at escape the bandits turn him into a masked gimp and stick a fish tank air pipe into his arm in order to to siphon off his blood, thereby turning him into a living "blood bank" for one of the zombie like bandit warriors.

Thus concludes the first 5 minutes of the movie as the opening credits roll.

From here on in it is the Charlize Theron show. We are introduced to the main character of the movie, "Imperator Furiosa", power pussy at large, replete with robotic arm, a bull dyke buzzcut and an intimidating scowl-fuelled go grrrrl attitude. That's right, a woman with the looks and physique of Charlize Theron is a head kicking warrior leader instead of the subjugated sex slave that she would surely be in any actual dystopian reality.

Sure, whatever you say Hollywood.

Anyway, Furiosa (who is not over-compensating for her physical inadequacies in any way at all I'm sure) is behind the wheel of her gigantic "Battle Truck", leading her rabble of zombie/bandit vehicles on a "supply mission" (AKA going to the shops) to a place known as"Gas Town". Of course, our titular hero Gimp Max comes along for the ride, chained to the front of one of the bandit cars ala the captured settlers in Mad Max 2.

So, by this stage I was getting a taste of the horrors that were yet to come.

So, with Gas Town visible in the distance Furiosa veers her not-compensating-for-anything enormo-truck off the road and heads off into the desert. In a momentary state of confusion her bandit subordinates ask her "What's the plan boss?" but being the strong, independent woman that she is she simply scowls menacingly, says nothing and otherwise ignores them, so her bandit buddies just shrug and dutifully follow her into the desert.

Meanwhile crazed bandit supremo Immortan Joe (excellently portrayed by "Toe Cutter" Hugh Keays-Byrne) notices via his telescope that his shopping mission to Gas Town has indeed changed course and is currently driving off into the desert. Sensing something is amiss, he heads off to his "breeding pens" only to find none of his wives are present, but there are a bunch of feminist inspired slogans adorning the walls. "Our babies will not become warlords" etc. Apparently Joe does have sex slaves, but Charlize Theron is not one of them. Talk about a lack of taste, sigh.

Naturally, Immortan Joe is none too pleased that his wives have all nicked off, so he assembles his army and heads off in pursuit of Furiosa, thereby triggering the first of the three main battle sequences.

At this point I need to explain that I loved Mad Max 2. Anyone who has seen that classic will be aware that the last half hour is taken up by the epic attempt by Max to drive the tanker and escape the wasteland bandit horde. It is a half hour of sheer awesomeness and excitement.

Well, the next half hour of Fury Road is basically the last half hour of Mad Max 2 only with different cars and Charlize Theron playing the part of Max Rockatanski. Max himself is still in his gimp costume and remains chained to the front of a bandit car for the duration of the battle. Occasionally he gets to yell out a profanity or two, that is his only contribution to this set piece.

After a spectacular and furious battle Furiosa manages to escape Joe and his gang by driving into a humongous sand storm. Everything gets either lost or destroyed in the cataclysm of swirling sand.

Fade in a scene of a sand mound, which begins to move and voilà, up pops Max the Gimp. He apparently managed to survive the mayhem carnage despite being helplessly chained to the front a rampaging vehicle, driven by the suicidal maniac Nux, for the entirety of the battle. 

Unfortunately though, blood bank Max is still connected to Nux by both chain and blood siphon. To make matters worse crazy Joe and his bandit hordes are back in the hunt and bearing down fast. Max spies the Battle Truck and trudges towards it, carrying the inert body of Nux with him.

Upon arrival he is greeted by Furiosa and a harem of Victoria's Secret models. Apparently Furiosa has decided to rescue Joe's wives instead of doing the grocery shopping but didn't have time to find any clothes for them. I reckoned at this point that Immortan Joe was probably regretting his decision to make Furiosa his deputy instead of making her wife number 6 and using her to produce an unending stream of little Immortans, but I digress.

Thankfully, Furiosa only rescued the super hot lingerie model types and left all the fat heffers that Joe was literally using as milk cows back at the bandit base behind. Apparently constantly lactating obese women are not worthy of rescuing. Or something.

So Max rocks up and confronts the lingerie clad women who are busy apparently bathing and showering in the middle of the desert using the assumedly limited water stores of the battle truck, all the while knowing that Immortan Joe is still closing in on them with his bandit army. Well, I assume they were cognisant of that fact, sometimes it is hard to tell these things in movies like this.

Of course this give us the perfect opportunity for Ms. Theron to demonstrate her uber ass-kicking powers that supposedly made her the bandit queen that she is, as we are now treated to a three way fisticuffs battle between Furiosa, Max and his recently revived bandit buddy Nux. Furiosa is only subdued when Max and Nux team up to overpower her. Sigh.

Understandably, Max wants out. He wants out of his gimp suit and out of the entire bunfight. After attempting to steal the Battle Truck he manages to drive 100 meters down the road before stopping. Damn, foiled by Furiosa and her brilliant kill switch. After a brief gunpoint discussion Max is disconnected from Nux and the group all set forth in the Battle Truck with Max (still with his gimp mask on) waving pistols in everyone's faces to ensure they behave and Nux left to fend for himself in the desert.

Now we have a short bit of dialogue where we learn that Furiosa has made some sort of deal with another "tribe" to gain safe passage through "the pass".

Upon arrival at the pass Furiosa asks Max what his name is. Max refuses to say, so she gives him the name "fool". She tells him that she is going out to talk to the other tribe and that Max should drive the truck. Further, when she yells "fool" he should put his foot down and go hard.

So, we are nearly at the half way point of the movie and Charlize Theron is calling all the shots, making all the decisions and basically driving the entire story. Meanwhile, Max has been a chained up gimp and a "blood bank" for almost the whole time.

Of course Furiosa has lied to the people she has made a deal with. They think they are getting a tanker full of gas but Furiosa has a double cross in mind. As Immortan Joe and his army, still in hot pursuit, comes thundering into view she yells "fool". Max starts driving while Furiosa climbs on to the truck and commences taking out dudes with her mad battle skillz.

A rock slide seals the pass just as they scrape through and on they go. Only one of Immortan Joes vehicles is capable of traversing the pass and remains in pursuit.

By now I was getting pretty bored with the whole thing so my memory is hazy. I remember some cheesy dialogue where Furiosa and Max get to know each other a bit, culminating in a particularly cringe worthy scene where Max asks Furiosa what she is looking for and she looks off into the distance and pauses for effect. My inner voice says "She is going to say redemption" and sure enough she says, still staring off into the distance "redemption". Groan.

Sometime around here the bandit Nux rejoins the group after a spectacular failure to redeem himself in the direct view of Immortan Joe. 

Eventually they move on until they get bogged in a muddy quagmire. A quagmire in the middle of the sandy desert. By this time Joe and his army have apparently made it through the pass and are hot on their heels again. For the first time in the movie Max actually does something useful. There is a 10 second scene of him setting some mines in the mud. Oh the heroism!

Then Max gets another chance to be useful as a bandit vehicle approaches in the dark, searchlight on and trying to locate the group. Max grabs the Imperitor's sniper rifle (The Imperitor carries a full arsenal with her because she kicks arse natch). He shoots for the light! He misses! He loads another round into the chamber while the Imperitor barks "You have two shots left". He shoots again! Another miss! Will Max make the third shot and save the day? Well, no, he will pass the rifle to the Imperitor so that she can make the shot. She shoots! She scores!

Not to worry Max, maybe you can be useful doing something else. What's that over there? It's a tree! Lord be praised the only tree in the entire wasteland just happens to be on the other side of the bog we are stuck in. The tree is dead but joy! We can use the winch (that looks like it would struggle to pull a Mini Minor off a beach) to pull the 200 tonne Battle Truck out of the sucking bog.

Dutifully, Max heads off, tow cable in hand and wraps it around the dead tree. Unfortunately he screws that up (I gave you one job to do!) by affixing it to the tree about 6 foot up from its base. As the winch starts a-pulling the tree starts a-bending. Oopsie. But fear not, the truck is moving too! The roots of the tree are popping out of the ground as it is pulled over but the truck is still moving! All the while Joe's minions are still bearing down! Will the tree give before the truck is freed? Will Crazy Joe arrive before they can escape? Oh the excitement! Yawn.

Of course the truck is freed and onwards our band of bull-dyke led Victoria's Secret models go with hapless Max going along for the ride.

We learn that they are heading towards "The Green Place". This is where Furiosa was born and is obviously a nod towards "Paradise" from Mad Max 2. Shortly after they reach a solitary, half collapsed HT tower with a naked and screaming Megan Gale perched atop it. Max actually speaks for a change, insightfully observing "That? That is bait". Furiosa is unphased however as she climbs out of the truck and begins yelling out what are apparently her tribal affiliations. Megan Gale yodels in reply and climbs down from the tower while at the same time a bunch of menacing "sand people" looking motorcycle riders emerge from the dunes, making a beeline towards our heroines.

Upon arrival, the sand people remove their head coverings to reveal themselves to be, and I am not making this up, a tribe of octogenarian women. Plus Megan Gale. 

Yes that is correct, there are a dozen or so 80 year old women roaming the wastelands on motorbikes, presumably fixing their own mechanical problems, scrounging for food, sourcing fuel and fighting off much larger and younger groups of male bandits. One wrinkly old Nanna described how she has "spiked everyone I have ever met" At this point I was wishing that somebody would spike me so that it would end.

"Who are these men?" spits one of the grannies. "They are trustworthy" replies Furiosa.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the "Green Place" is no more and has been swallowed up by the wasteland. Unperturbed, Furiosa takes charge of the group and decides that everyone will just ride out into the salt lake because apparently their dirt bikes are “carrying enough supplies to last 180 days" in a featureless desert (side note: normally, this sort of impractical idiocy is to be expected from a Mad Max type film and on it's own would just be a bit of humorous quirkiness such as the VTOL gyrocoptor in Mad Max 2. However, in a monumental piece of crap such as this it becomes just one of a hugely long list of things to hate about this movie. I can forgive a lot of stupid stuff in a movie if it is enjoyable but if it's not enjoyable then the stupid things just add to the overall level of shittiness)

Anyway, at hearing this plan, Max first responds with what I believe was his third actual spoken line and says "I'll make my own way". Five minutes later though, he has had a change of heart and suggests to Furiosa that they should head back to Immortan Joes stronghold and attempt an oestrogen fuelled coup. Well, it would be oestrogen fuelled were its participants not all post menopausal anyway. Nonetheless, everyone agrees with the plan but the Imperiosa is still in charge here so in a tense scene of lip biting and hand wringing anticipation we all anxiously await what her final decision will be. Phew, she agrees to the plan! 

So, remember when I talked about the final half hour of Mad Max 2? Well here we have that sequence once again only instead of warriors manning the battle stations on the Battle Truck we have a bunch of little old ladies. And Megan Gale. And some bloke as well, I think his name was "fool" .

The final set piece battle commences as the Battle Truck and the old ladies on motorbikes charge head long into Immortan Joes forces. Thankfully, Megan Gale is euthanased early on by a blow to the back of the head from a Kenworth grill while assorted little old ladies die heroically to the left and right.

At some point somebody has to clamber about hanging off the Battle Truck's undercarriage to perform running repairs as it is hurtling along. Fortunately Furiosa is up for the job! You go grrrl!

But wait, what is that? Yes! It's the V8 Interceptor, being driven by bad guys. Well it is the Interceptor, but it has been modified a bit in one of the most stupidly conceived ways imaginable. 

Now, one of the "humorously quirky" things about Mad Max 2 was how Max had an on/off switch for the Interceptor's supercharger. Superchargers do not work that way. The supercharger pump is driven directly by a drive belt that comes straight off the engine crankshaft. Well, whoever decided to "improve" on the Interceptor's already fanciful design did it by triple-stacking three superchargers and running the drive belt around each one but not the actual engine crank shaft itself. There was nothing to drive the superchargers at all. It was totally ridiculous and an unnecessary change, but whatever, it's still the Interceptor and if that was the only thing wrong with this movie I wouldn't really care.

Max sees the Interceptor as well, and starts pointing and yelling futilely "That's mine!". At this point I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe the movie could redeem itself somewhat by re-uniting Max and the Interceptor. I perked up a bit to see what would happen only to slump back down 15 seconds later as the Interceptor was crushed between the Battle Truck and another truck, goes under their wheels and explodes in an incendiary flash of disintegrating car parts.

So, I guess that means no more Interceptor in the next two movies then? Not that it matters much because I doubt I will watch them anyway after this disaster.

The battle rages on, mostly in the same vein as the one from MM2 but with a few new touches.

A particularly stupid part had the Battle Truck and a bandit vehicle racing neck and neck. One of the bandits decides that they can gain an advantage by climbing out onto the hood and squirting fuel into the air intake atop the supercharger. Yes, that is what they did. They squirted fuel into the air intake to make it go faster. Of course our intrepid heroines couldn't allow the bad guys to get the upper hand so honorary woman Max climbs out on the hood of the Battle Truck, sucks fuel into his mouth and spits it into the air intake of the Battle Truck. A furious battle of of fuel spitting and squirting ensues to see who can “supercharge” their vehicle the most and surge ahead. The whole thing is monumentally idiotic.

The rest of the chase/battle was well done if you can ignore the above idiocy and the fact that half the battle is being fought by senile old ladies. Max finally gets to do some precarious fighting on top of the truck with various bad guys including a fun scene on the Amp Truck with the flame throwing guitar.

Just as the few survivors of the group are approaching "the pass" again (with the intention of blowing the trailer of the Battle Truck up and causing a rock slide to seal it off, because that worked so well the last time they did it apparently) Furiosa is stabbed in the side with a shiv. Undeterred she fights on valiantly. In the meantime, Immortan Joe tries to stop the truck by driving his triple-decker monster truck in front of it to impede its progress. Furiosa, the Victoria's Secret models and Max end up escaping the cab of the truck and into Joe's car. Joe dies a quick death, the bandit Nux finds (cough) redemption by jackknifing the truck and exploding it, sealing off the pass so that our intrepid group of women can continue on unmolested.

Time for some human drama now because, you see, The Imperator has been injured and even her extreme grrrl power can't keep her keeping on. Again I perked up, maybe the pay off for watching this piece of crap could be seeing Charlize Theron die so that we can be assured that the next movie would not include the Imperator. How naive am I eh?

The answer is very naive of course, because, unsurprisingly, Mad "fool" Max' can't let this happen and his white knight instinct kicks in. He proceeds to stab himself in the arm. He inserts a length of the previously mentioned fish tank tube into the wound (that he just happened to have on him) and then repeats the process on Furiosa.

Yes, he literally bleeds for her. While he is doing this and apparently at the point of tearing up he tells her "My name . . . .  is Max. My name is Max". I think I threw up a bit in mouth at that point.

Ultimately, the group arrives back at the late Immortan Joe's stronghold. Max reveals Joe's bloodied remains, the crowd of peasants go wild, the fat milk cows instantly and inexplicably appear on the ramparts to let the water flow free (like all good despots Joe had been withholding water as a means to control the peasantry) and every one cheers as a new era of socialist inspired equality and fairness is ushered in under the tough but fair rule of Imperator Furiosa. Until the water runs out or everyone starves anyway. Max quietly recedes into the crowd. The end.

Mad Max Fury Road is a perfect example of post modern feminist ideology. It's purpose is solely to support the typical feminist thinking of the modern era, that being that women are all oppressed victims (the Victoria's Secret models) while simultaneously being strong and powerful ass kicking machines (Furiosa and the rampaging grannies).

At the same time men fell into two groups. Mostly they were barbaric, oppressing monsters (Immortan Joe and his drug addicted hordes) while a tiny minority were (ultimately) well meaning but relatively ineffectual betas (Max and Nux). Ultimately, Nux proves his value through  a valiant suicide effort, crashing the Battle Truck into the pass thereby closing it behind the fleeing women whereas Max proved his worth through some heroic actions in the last 20 minutes culminating in his behaving as a live blood transfusion provider in an attempt to save the valiant heroine of the movie.

There is nothing in this movie that portrays men in a strong, powerful and mostly just light. No all the men were either evil, fundamentally flawed and/or ineffectual.

Indeed, despite a couple of heroic bandit dispatching contributions made by Max towards the end of the film (after his hapless fumbling during the first three quarters of it), the viewer is left in no doubt whatsoever that the whole thing could have been pulled off by Imperator Furiosa, with maybe some help from the Victoria's Secret models and power grannies as backups.

Max was simply lucky that he was there at the climax at all so he could share in a tiny bit of the limelight as the Imperator nods barely perceptibly in his direction as he slinks off to the wasteland again.

I could never have expected that Mad Max would ever be portrayed as such a weak, ineffectual character, yet here we are in 2015 and apparently the socialist/feminist conquest of Hollywood is complete.

To summarise, this movie was an appalling feminist fairy tale. Avoid it all costs.