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.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is a worthy successor to “Avengers”.

Sequels. One of the toughest types of films to pull off. They truly are a very delicate balance. Their existence is determined by the success of the film before it and thus, they are expected to retain those elements that made it successful. The flaw in this, of course, is that too often they are also criticised for repeating those same elements. Comedies are criticized for using the same jokes, action thrillers for using the same plots, etc. Super hero blockbusters, however are probably the most difficult.

Not only do you have to make the film better, you have to avoid falling into familiar patterns as well as please a rabid fan base who have likely read the original comic source material and will hate the film if it deviates even slightly. Now that IS a generalization and I don’t want to tar all comic fans with the same brush. Still, this illustrates the unique challenges that go into this sort of film making.

Adding to the mix is a growing social awareness of representation in film and *why* it is important to represent characters beyond the stock white male action hero. People are actively voicing their desire to see other types of people on screen in lead roles such as women, people of colour, LGBT characters and characters with disabilities and this is an awesome thing. I am one of these people so I understand the frustration when some of these stories fall short of the mark. I mention this because Joss Whedon, the director of Avengers: Age of Ultron is a man who has made it very clear through his body of work that he is a feminist that believes highly in the importance of strong, well written, and well rounded female characters. His career has been built on this feminism and desire for representation.

The first Avengers was one of the most successful films of all time. Joss’ challenge was then to make a sequel that could top it, stay faithful to his fan base, AND the Marvel Cinematic Universe that was built around him in the previous films, not to mention maintain pace with the television show “Agents of Shield”. Yeah, no pressure there.

As Joss himself said in an interview “the moment you declare yourself politically, you destroy yourself artistically”. I fully understand what he meant when he said this and the reaction after the film’s release shows this statement to be more than true. Amid accusations from fans (as well as people simply with an axe to grind against Whedon), he has been accused of abandoning his “feminist cred” with this film due to how Black Widow’s character was handled (more on this later). A joke made by Tony Stark also received a lot of ire (in which he attempts to lift Thor’s hammer and when doing so declares that if he rules Asgard he will re-institute Prima Nocta). I find this to be particularly hypocritical since most of these criticisms came from social media and blogs. A lot of those same blogs turned around to praise other films that make far worse jokes, such as Pitch Perfect 2 in which a Guatemalan character tells the girls that when she was 9 years old, her brother tried to sell her for a chicken. I don’t know about you, but I have far more of an issue with a joke about sex trafficking than I do about a joke that centres around an ancient rite that may not have even existed.

That being said, the point of even mentioning this is to highlight just how difficult a task Whedon had ahead of him with “Age of Ultron”. In my view, he succeeded with this film. Are there problems with it? Absolutely! There were problems with the first film as well. Despite this, it is a good movie and makes for a highly entertaining two and a half hours.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” picks up largely where the last film leaves off. The team are fighting together to take down a Hydra base and retrieve Loki’s sceptre. Upon doing so, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) ask Thor (Chris Hemsworth) for permission to study the sceptre for three days before Tony’s big party. Mere scientific curiosity  takes a back seat when Banner and Stark discover inside the sceptre lies a super computer more alien and powerful than they have ever seen. What follows is a pretty familiar story – a type of “Frankenstein”-like tale, if you will. In an ill fated attempt to bring about “peace in our time”, Banner and Stark try to use the sceptre to implant an artificial intelligence into one of Tony’s suits as a peace keeping measure. The AI system, upon seeing the task ahead of him, realizes that the only way to achieve peace in our time, is by wiping out all of humanity – starting with the Avengers.

Ultron (James Spader) achieves sentience during a party that Stark hosts, takes them by surprise, thus revealing to the other team members the extent of Banner and Stark’s experimentation. Ultron escapes, and manages to recruit two “enhanced” humans that Hydra had been experimenting on using their axe to grind with Tony Stark as fuel. The twins Pietro and Wanda Maximov (Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen), have their own journey in the film culminating in them joining the Avengers along with a second Stark creation called The Vision (Paul Bettany). The final line-up is present in the cinematic battle of good vs. evil.

The Good:

1. The chemistry between the ensemble cast. A cast this large can be very difficult. Allowing for each character to have enough screen time and fit that into the overall plot arc is hard when you have only a few characters to work with. “Age of Ultron” features at least seven main characters, all of whom have their own personal character arcs. The balance with which this was done is incredible, not to mention the chemistry within the cast itself. It’s no secret that Joss loves a good ensemble cast and while he may not have chosen all his actors personally, he knows what drives each character and how to get the best performance out of them. No team member is superfluous and each has something important to do that fits the overall plot line.
2. The performances. These are grown adults in superhero outfits. Some of these outfits look quite silly and yet unlike DC (whose heroes seem almost apologetic about their costumes), the actors own their characters and bring a seriousness to it as well as a sense of silliness. The fact that they are wearing capes does not take away from the drama of the film or the fun for the audience. The performances are strong, nuanced and in some places quite powerful. Robert Downey Jr. masterfully portrays Tony Stark who manages to walk the line between peace maker and megalomaniac. The effects of the battle of New York in the first film are still with him and they drive his desire to protect the world from the next alien threat they may face. The same is true for Scarlett Johansson who picks up as Natasha Romanov – the Russian former assassin on her own journey for redemption. The first film dealt with Romanov joining the Avengers in an attempt to erase the “red in her ledger”. Whedon only gave us a small glimpse of her character but it was more than enough thanks to his writing and her acting. She may, in the hands of a lesser actress, have come across as your typical “strong female character” ™, who kicks butt, takes names, and shows zero vulnerability, emotion or character depth. Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE seeing female action heroes, but too often they are reduced to the type of character who runs through the movie beating up bad guys in skin tight cleavage bearing costumes, quipping jokes and never cracking a smile. That is not Romanov. Her character is tough, yes, wears tight leather, yes, but is also allowed to be soft and occasionally weak. She is full of pain, regret, and flaws – like any well written character in fiction. Johansson manages to highlight all these facets of her personality within the short time frame allotted. James Spader also did a very good job as Ultron. I was more pleased with him than I thought I would be given that he was playing a crazed robot. I didn’t expect the level of depth that I saw in his character and liked the way that his acting, dialogue and even way of speaking seemed to mirror a darker side of Tony Stark – like the worse aspects of Stark’s personality magnified. Other performances are worth noting, but if I continue to discuss them all, I will take up far too much space. Suffice to say the cast was well chosen and ALL of them hit their mark.
3. The dialogue. Typical, wonderful and Whedonesque, the key reason I always enjoy one of Joss’ projects is the dialogue. He can do wonderful things with the words chosen for his characters. He shows us through his characters words, who they are and what they want. Ultron has a very specific personality that is half Tony Stark and half something else. The twins might not have much screen time, but we are able to feel their pain through the description Piotr gives at the beginning of what Tony has done to him (however inadvertently). Tony’s quips and jokes are spot on, and the dialogue between Widow and The Hulk is touching. He shows the teamwork and friendships the characters have formed through his dialogue as well, allowing us to see how far they have come. The beginning scene is very illustrative of his when Tony says “shit” and Captain America (Chris Evans) admonishes him for his language. Tony fires back with “did Cap just say ‘language’?” which eases the tension. All this is done WHILE they fight showing us the easy comradery the characters have developed as they work as a team. The joke makes its way throughout the film reminding us each time that they are a team at the core and they will get through this. That is the mark of a good writer.
4. The theme of the film. The first film focuses around the team coming together and overcoming their differences in order to work as a team. This film begins with a scene that showcases how they have managed to do that at the beginning with the fight to reclaim Loki’s sceptre. It’s fun to see them having figured out how to fight as a unit, the friendships and easy comradery, but of course that can’t last. While the first film might have been concentrated on how to get them there, this film focuses on the crisis that occurs when they are confronted with a monster of their own creation. This time it’s not just an outside enemy that they have to face, but their own inner fears and demons. A good reason why the inclusion of Scarlet Witch works so well is that her powers cause them to fall apart from the inside. We get an excellent insight into what each of them fear and how that fear affects the team dynamic. This is something Joss has always done very well and this is no exception.
5. The concern that is shown for human life. This is something that continually pisses me off with superhero movies – the big battle sequences often destroy massive amounts of property and kill countless civilians and the heroes don’t tend to seem too concerned about it as long as they get their bad guy. DC is particularly guilty of this (Man of Steel, looking at you!), and it’s frustrating as hell. Not so with Avengers. Both the first film AND the second film make it a point that human life is the priority over all else. The first film showed the team creating a perimeter in New York City and evacuating the civilians to the best of their ability. They made it their goal to confine the battle to that area and contain the damage to minimize casualties. This is heightened in the second movie in several different spots. The scene at the beginning where Tony sends his drones to evacuate the city, the scene where he brings out the Hulk busting armour and scans a building that is about to come down for vital signs and of course the entire battle sequence in Sokovia at the end is entirely built around saving people and minimizing casualties.
6. The scene with Tony Stark’s party. Awesome. Just awesome. It’s one of the few times we get to see them relaxed and having fun. It’s the stuff fanfiction is made of. Is it fan service? Yes, but it’s awesome fan service.
7. The relationship between Hulk and Black Widow. Yeah it got a lot of controversy. People claiming that by giving her a love interest, they are somehow denying the strength of her character and I can see the logic in it to an extent. She IS the only female member of the team and therefore is rather (unfairly) expected to represent all aspects of the female experience. This would be a difficult task for any character. Arguments have been made that by giving her a love interest, the story is then more about her romance than it is about her redemption. Again, I can see it to an extent, but for me, the romance WAS about her redemption. It was about both her and Bruce Banner – both people isolated by society and both people who believe their actions in the past have made them monsters. It makes sense that widow would gravitate to the one person who couldn’t even begin to judge her for what she has done. But it’s more than that. She wants to save him because in saving him, she believes she is capable of saving herself. She is worthy of forgiveness. I thought it was nuanced and very well done. The characters have mad chemistry and I don’t think it diminishes her as a character to fall in love. I think it shows yet another layer that I hope will be explored when (please let it be when), she gets her own movie.

The Bad:

1. The action sequences/3D. I did not feel the 3D was necessary for this film. Some films I can see the justification of it, but for this one, the only justification I could see was the desire for Marvel/Disney to suck more money out of our pockets. I know there are sometimes non 3D showings, but they are few and far between these days and we wanted to see it in the VIP theatre which was ONLY 3D. I get a migraine from 3D and my eyes never quite focus on the image properly. Nothing bothers me more than a movie pointlessly put in 3D. The action sequences felt overly long as well and a bit bloated. That’s something I never expected to say about a Joss Whedon film, as normally I find his pacing to be second to none, but in this case I felt that a lot of the sequences went on far longer than they needed to. One scene in particular that stands out for me as being far too lengthy is the scene in which Tony is using his Hulk Busting Armor (called Veronica) in order to stop Banner from destroying everything. It felt as if this scene dragged on with almost no end in sight and since it wasn’t really all that necessary plot-wise, it quickly became quite boring.
2. The pacing. This kind of ties into the action sequences being far too long, but it is worth mentioning. The scenes I most enjoyed in the film were the scenes that allowed the characters a little downtime between giant bloated action sequences. These could have been placed better however, and I felt that a lot of the movie dragged in places. I know that Whedon’s original cut of the film was over 3 hours long, and while I am glad they cut it down, I do felt that some of the wrong material was cut.
3. The scene with Thor and the mystical pool of holy water or whatever the hell it was. I get it – Marvel wanted this scene there, but it felt REALLY out of place. It felt totally shoehorned in and kind of silly.

Overall this was a solid action/adventure superhero story with great dialogue, characterization and a perfect cast. Is it Joss Whedon’s best? No, not by a long shot, but it IS awesome. While I think it’s a shame that Whedon won’t be involved with future Marvel films, I am excited to see what he can do with his own material as well as full creative control.