Mad Max: Fury Road is pure action packed awesomeness! (and as a bonus, it makes MRAs cry!)

One of the biggest surprise successes of the summer blockbuster season was the film “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Or, as MRAs (Mens Rights Activists) would like to call it, “Mad Maxipad” or “Mad Max: Feminist Road.” I first saw the trailer for this film months ago and although the visuals looked amazing, I wasn’t all that interested in it. I was never a huge fan of the Mad Max films to begin with and the trailer gave nothing away as to plot. I tend to avoid movies that are “reboots” or “remakes” for the simple fact that they usually suck (“Carrie” I’m looking at you) and I mistakenly believed the film to be nothing more than that.

Boy, was I wrong.

On a few things. The first thing I was wrong about was thinking the film was a “remake” or a “reboot”. It’s neither (though given the fact that Tom Hardy had taken the place of Mel Gibson as the titular character, you can’t really blame me for making that assumption). It’s simply a continuation of the series. The actor replacement was something that was done because Mel Gibson would have been too old for the role. Despite the fact that 30 years have passed since the last Mad Max film, director George Miller chose not to show that passage of time.

And then there was the assumption of mine that there was no plot. Again, wrong.

About a week or so before the film came out, I started seeing articles posted on social media about the film. Apparently an article had appeared on a well known MRA website called “Return of Kings” denouncing the movie as “feminist propaganda”. One of the writers for the site had seen the movie and was extremely disappointed in the fact that the movie contained a large female cast let by Charlize Theron’s character and that the narrative of the film was largely centred around her. Further enraging the neanderthalic mindset was the fact that her character was not a damsel or someone in need of saving, but just as strong and capable of Max. They took particular offense to the fact that in some parts of the film he takes his cue from her as well as the fact that director George Miller had consulted Eve Ensler author of “The Vagina Monologues” for help on how to accurately portray women who were victims of sex trafficking.

All of this was betrayal of the highest order. Accusations were made that the filmmakers had “destroyed an American icon” and that Miller and co. had “bowed down to feminist pressure”. They conveniently ignored the fact that Miller is Australian and that the cast for all Mad Max films (including this one) were NOT American. Using this as their basis, they urged a boycott of the film.

Now, normally anything written by MRAs, especially anything that comes from the “Return of Kings” website is immediately dismissed as morons shouting into the wind, and rightly so. For some reason however, this particular article blew up on social media and these idiots received 15 seconds of fame. It was 15 seconds that backfired on them, as their calls for a boycott only made the film that much more popular causing many people to see it who would not otherwise have gone or to see it more than once.

I myself became far more interested when I heard they were so opposed to the film. My interest increased even further when I saw the heaps of praise that the critics were giving it. It achieved a 98% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty darn difficult. The film was highly successful on its opening weekend. The theatres were packed to the brim with both men and women and when it ended, people left the theatre raving about what they saw.

Sorry MRAs, but nobody felt “betrayed” by the feminism in the movie, in fact everybody loved how awesome Theron’s character Furiosa was – myself included. The numbers were GOOD for the film. Yes, it came in second that weekend at the box office prompting many MRAs to claim their boycott had “won”, but when you look at the actual amount of money the film took in, it was in fact far more than had been anticipated and that was largely because of word of mouth advertisement and the “scandal” surrounding it.

And what film did the movie come in second to? “Pitch Perfect” – a film written, directed and starring all women.

Most films might cripple under all this hype, but “Mad Max: Fury Road” deserved every amount of hype and more. It was one of the best action films I have seen in a good long while.

The plot centers around a post apocalyptic society ruled by a patriarchal tyrant by the name of Immorten Joe. Society has suffered greatly from nuclear fall out and we see very early on that most of the members of the Citadel including Joe himself are sick and many are dying. There is fresh water there and Joe hoards that water as a means of controlling the population. He keeps five women captive as sex slaves in an attempt to breed out the sickness. It is these women that cause the action to kick into high gear.

Max (Tom Hardy), is captured at the beginning of the film and taken to the Citadel because he is healthy. One of the means of preserving the lives of those living in the Citadel is through blood transfusions from healthy donors. Max is then classed as a “bloodbag” and given to a young, sick War Boy named Nux (Nicholous Hoult).

Charlize Theron’s character is one of Immorten Joe’s warriors named Furiosa. She has a mechanical arm, drives a war rig and conducts raids in order to get supplies for the Citadel. We find out later that she was kidnapped as a child and brought to the Citadel where she was groomed as a warrior. She’s pretty high ranking too, from what we can gather as she is given control of the most powerful war rig with a good number of men under her command. She sets out on what seems to be a routine mission, however we soon find out that she has betrayed Immorten Joe and liberated the five women he was keeping as sex slaves and breeders. This is a mission of redemption for her, and one that Max is soon caught up in as Nux is sent out after her with Max along for the ride.

What follows is a fast paced action packed visual masterpiece culminating in Max, Furiosa, the five wives, some bad ass grannies and Nux taking on Immorten Joe to conquer the Citadel and end his reign of terror.

The Good:

1. Charlize Theron. She is AMAZING. MRAs might be all butt hurt by her awesomeness, but pretty much everybody else seemed to love her. She is not your typical “strong female character”. Yes, she is strong character, but she is also compassionate and multi layered. She isn’t there ONLY to kick ass, she is a whole person. Hers is a mission of redemption and she is the one with the hero’s arc. Theron gives such a nuanced performance, it’s hard to walk out of the theatre unaffected by it. The scene in which she finds out the paradise she thought they were escaping to no longer exists and falls to her knees screaming with rage and heartbreak is incredible. Such an amazing performance.
2. Nux. He’s adorable. He starts out as just a War Boy intent on stopping Furiosa in order to gain favour from Immorten Joe. He is dying and takes Max along with him as his blood bag. From this we find out that Immorten Joe has convinced all the dying War Boys that if they die in battle, they will go to Valhalla and this is what Nux intends to do – die gloriously. It’s nothing new as far as storylines go, except somewhere along the way, Nux has the veil lifted from his eyes and begins to see the truth in who Immorten Joe is. He realizes that there is no Valhalla and that his tumours (which he has named Larry and Barry) will take his life no matter what. He further realizes the error of his ways when he interacts with the five wives and starts to see them as human beings rather than the property of Immorten Joe. (Perhaps that’s what the MRAs didn’t like? Seeing women as humans?) He forms a friendship with one of them, and begins to understand that both of them have been victims in some way or another. His storyline also then becomes about redemption. Instead of wanting to die for glory, he dies for those he cares about. It’s through him that we see the War Boys as human as well. They aren’t all evil dastardly villains. Many of them are sick, frightened young men who have been poisoned by a tyrant. He allows us sympathy for them, even as they hunt him down.
3. The stunts and action. Miller has always been a fan of action stunts being as authentic as possible. All the stunts in the first three films were real and in some cases very very dangerous. He could have used CGI for this movie, but instead decided to eschew the use of it in favour of real cars, real stunts and real action. The results are absolutely stunning to watch and made even more so because of how real they are.
4. The visuals. I know this sort of goes hand in hand with the stunts, but for me my love of the visuals goes beyond the sheer mind blowing action. The costumes, the cars, the colours and vibrancy were all meticulously chosen for maximum effect. It’s a beautiful film to look at from a pure aesthetic point of view and that is a triumph in and of itself.
5. The music. Oh my God the music. The entire film is set to an accompanying sound track and by that I mean the soundtrack literally follows them. Instead of it just being background noise, Immorten Joe brings musicians with him in his war party. They travel on a HUGE rig, with drummers, a wall of speakers and a guitarist who is tied to the speakers with ropes playing a guitar that shoots flames out of it. FLAMES COMING OUT OF A GUITAR! The music keeps pace with the action and is always perfectly chosen to reflect the emotions or the intensity of the action taking place. Plus, guitar that shoots flames!
6. The pacing. It’s a two hour chase scene effectively, yet there are still moments of downtime where we get to know the characters. We are allowed these small moments within the greater action of the film to gain insight into their characters, to feel for them and to mourn them when they die.
7. The myriad of female characters. One of the reasons that Miller consulted with Eve Ensler was that she had done some work with women who had been involved in the sex trafficking trade in the Congo. She had insight into the various different ways that women like this responded to being forced into the sex trade and Miller wanted to use that knowledge to help write more realistic characters. The five wives are women who have been forced into sexual slavery and each of them has her own distinct personality and reaction to what they have gone through. One attempts to escape and go back to Immorten Joe because she is scared of the unknown. One sacrifices herself and her unborn child to help save the others. One takes pity on Nux – a War Boy who should be her enemy. The experiences of these women might be the same, but they all feel it differently. The same goes for the women that they meet up with who are what’s left of the “place of many mothers”. These women are not young, beautiful and strong. They are elderly and hardened by all the hardships they have faced and yet in the short time that they have on screen, each of them shows us a part of herself. THIS is why we need more women on screen. Precisely for this reason. Black Widow in the Avengers was criticized because as the only main female character, she was expected to represent all aspects of womanhood. That’s not possible. Instead with this film, we get a multitude of women, all of which are allowed to be human and have their own distinct personalities. We can identify with any of them we choose.

The Bad:

1. Not a fan of 3D ever, so again the fact that I HAD to see it in 3D (or miss out on the visual amazingness of the AVX theatre) did not make me happy.  Can’t wait to see it in Blu Ray though – that will look awesome!

Overall I am so so happy this movie was as successful as it was. Even happier because it means the MRAs of the world will go home and cry big manly tears while more films of its kind get released. Does Mad Max take a bit of a back seat in the film? Yes, but that is nothing new. In both “The Road Warrior” and “Beyond Thunderdome”, Max gets reluctantly drawn into someone else’s problems and agrees to help out. Cry it out little boys, cry it out.

“Pacific Rim” is light on plot but so visually stunning, it doesn’t matter.

 

Very rarely is a director so respected that studios will throw money at them to let them make exactly the type of picture they want. Only a few fall into that category, and some of those labours of love have fallen spectacularly flat (“Sucker Punch” comes to mind). These days, a film is only as good as the box office revenue it brings in.  Much of what does make it to screen is manufactured heavily by the studios in order to maximise its money making capability. Most are adaptations, sequels, comic book films, or true life stories and almost all are in 3D, DBox, or IMAX. It almost seems like the era of the auteur and original story is dead.

That’s one of the reasons that Pacific Rim is such an anomaly. Yes, it’s in 3D, but it’s one of the few films out there in which the 3D feels 100% justified. It’s also one of those rare films that has a (semi) original storyline (Kaiju monster movies are nothing new after all).  Guillermo Del Toro, however, has had a lot of success with some pretty intense films. I will admit, when I first saw the trailer for “Pacific Rim”, I had zero interest in seeing it. Monster/Robot smash ‘em up movies aren’t really my thing. When I saw who directed it however, I became intrigued. My husband showed me “Pan’s Labyrinth” a while back and I found it one of the most intense and rewarding films to come out in a good long while. It was visually beautiful, eerie, moody and rich in story all at the same time.

Obviously this meant I needed to see “Pacific Rim”. I wanted to see what a good director could do with a very silly, very flimsy plot.

And I was impressed. While the film was silly, light on character development and very ridiculous in terms of plot, it is beautiful to watch and most of all, FUN.

The plot is (as I said before), very simple. A breach between dimensions or wolds has opened up at the bottom of the ocean near the Pacific Rim (hence the title). Out of it, come these massive monsters called Kaijus (the Japanese word for “giant monster”). They attack the Earth and destroy several major cities around the world. Eventually, world leaders band together and build robotic monsters to fight them called Jaegers. In order to pilot the Jaegers, two pilots are needed to form a sort of mind meld (or “neural handshake”) called “the Drift”. This allows the pilots to access each other’s thoughts and work together. This is all introduced in the film’s opening monologue. The rest of the film is simply the Jaegers (and their pilots) battling the Kaijus and attempting to close the breach for good. Obviously there are some internal problems the characters face (the main character Raleigh Becket played by Charlie Hunman loses his brother in a Jaeger fight at the beginning of the film), but it’s mainly just to gloss up the film between action sequences. Normally, I would have a problem with that, but this time not so much.

OK, so starting off:

The Good:

1. The visuals: This is arguable the “star” vehicle of the film. If there is one thing that Del Toro knows how to do, it is how to appropriately use 3D and how to make a movie about destruction and mayhem look amazing. Some of the shots were just awe inspiring and that is down to him.
2. The special effects:  This goes hand in hand with the visuals, but I liked how some of this was handled. A lot of directors when tackling a project like this would rely solely on CGI in order to achieve what they needed to, and while Del Toro obviously uses CGI, he certainly doesn’t rely on it. I remember reading an interview in which he stated that a lot of the major sets were built on a massive scale in order to simulate realism. The head of the Jaeger was built to scale (and correct me if I am wrong) but when the actors had to move the machines, the resistance they were encountering when they did so was real as well. Del Toro said in an interview that most of the actors broke under the physical strain of moving the Jaeger. The commitment to realism is impressive – especially given the film’s completely unrealistic premise. It paid off though because the effects looked absolutely stunning. It’s refreshing to see in a film like this, as he could have easily phoned it in with the CGI and made just as much money.
3. Not hiring big name actors: Sometimes hiring actors with a hefty resume can make a film better. Other times, it can overwhelm it. Think of the last film that was helmed by Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson. These actors have had so much publicity off screen and so much scandal that it inevitably transfers over to their projects and that can sometimes be harmful. Del Toro could have easily picked Brad Pitt or someone else as big of a name in order to bring in the box office numbers, but he chose to go with lesser-knowns. Why he did so is anybody’s guess, but it was a gamble that in my opinion paid off. Well, with the exception of Hunman who I still see as Lloyd from “Undeclared”, but that’s just me.
4. The atmosphere: A lot of the big blockbusters that have come out lately get weighed down by the tone of the film. You come out of it feeling exhausted and emotionally drained rather than exhilarated. “Man of Steel” was one of those films, whereas “Pacific Rim” (despite its apocalyptic storyline), felt lighthearted and fun the whole way through. He managed to create an atmosphere that was serious enough to warrant the character’s actions, but had enough humour and levity not to overwhelm the audience. Which brings me to…
5. The “sidekicks”: Burn Gorman and Charlie Day. These two play scientists who are researching the Jaegers, but also competing against one another. Both play their characters with such manic glee that it makes for excellent humour and comic relief. They really are a pleasure to watch.

The Bad:

1. The Wall: Most of my issues with the film are plot driven, so bear with me. I don’t have a much of a problem with them as I would normally in a film because the movie itself was so enjoyable. However a few things nagged at me and the wall was one of them. Once the Jaegers start losing against the Kaijus, the governments of the world decide their next mode of defense is to build a giant wall to keep the Kaijus out. I know the film’s premise is ridiculous to begin with, but this kind of seems overly ridiculous – even for this film. Especially since about three quarters of the way in, a Kaiju attacks and smashes the wall without a second thought. They have been fighting these things for years – shouldn’t they know how powerful they are by now? Which brings me to point two…
2. The cities on the Pacific Rim: Why do they keep rebuilding cities so close to the shore when these attacks happen over and over again? Surely they would know after the first few attacks and the fact that they haven’t been able to close the breach that they are going to keep coming through. Wouldn’t you just cut your losses and stop building major population centres there?
3. Raleigh getting “convinced” to rejoin the program: Given the trauma of losing his brother, you would think it would take more than a simple “hey we need your help” to get him to come on board.
4. The trials Raleigh went through to choose his next pilot: If their minds have to be compatible when they enter the Drift, wouldn’t it make more sense to do neurological testing to see whether or not they can be linked successfully? Instead it’s some kind of weird Fight Club meets Mortal Combat test of skills (a test in which nobody except one seems capable of passing).
5. The first scene in which he and Mako enter the Drift together: If it was so dangerous to get caught in the Drift, why wouldn’t they run some sort of trial simulation before putting them in there together – especially when they knew that both of them were potentially mentally unstable due to the trauma they had suffered. Instead, they give them control of a massive nuclear powered robot and assume it will all go to plan the first time out. A bit silly, if you ask me.
6. The fact that they never said “Once more into the breach”: NOT. EVEN. ONCE.

Ultimately, a surprisingly enjoyable smash ‘em up monster vs. monster film. I would definitely recommend it and that is surprising for me.