Mad Max: Fury Road - Part 4

[The Shape]

You have to enjoy a bad guy who travels with his own theme music. Then the lair, the souped up cars, the army of crazed henchmen, the harem, the mask....dude was going all out with the whole supervillain thing. He also had some badass driving skills.

And the voice.

 

[Loden Greatstorm]

I really need to watch this again, so epic.

 

[The Endless]

Immortan Joe is a great villain. Terrifying and charismatic. But there is layers to him also. The part when Splendid was hanging onto the side of the Rig... it was Joe who warned her about the rocks. Yea sure most probably he only thinks of her as nothing but a carrier for his offspring, but it just added a little layer to this monster of a man.

I've started to see a bit of a backlash against this film already. Well not backlash but people calling it overrated and nothing special. I can't understand this. We haven't had a film like this for donkeys years. We NEEDED a film like this. A film that isn't all glossy and formulaic and studio mandated. This is purely the directors vision.

It's basically an indie film... with a big studio budget. Like George Miller was given 150 million and told to do whatever the **** he wanted. It's amazing. This is what action film making is all about. Not your CGI and green screen fests. I mean people bang on about the opening scene of Age of Ultron. That's nothing compared to what is in this film. This is real guerrilla film making. Peoples lives are actually at risk in this film and it looks so much better. When people scoff at action films, saying they are a lesser form of movie... they need to watch this. This makes action art. It's real film making.

This is like the Apocalypse Now of the 21st century.

 

[terry78]

Popular means overrated. Thought you knew. I enjoyed the film but I'm not on its dick either, as it were.

 

[The Endless]

That is true. I wouldn't say i'm on it's dick lol. But it's so refreshing to see something like this made nowadays. It's like the anti-blockbuster. It's weird, it's violent... and it had a 150 million dollar budget. It's good to see a film this size that is purely the directors vision... not a film made by a committee.

Hopefully this is a success, not just because i want a sequel, but because maybe the money men in Hollywood will start thinking that investing a lot of money in R rated action movies is worthwhile.

 

[Guts]

This is a post that I found on tumblr and I didn't realize this as well.

I just realized the reason why the War Boys worship the V8 engine is because V8=Valhalla. Because Valhalla has eight letters.

 

[SlamAdams]

8/10

The only bad thing I can truly say about it is Tom Hardy isn't Mel Gibson. 9 out of 10 times Hardy would probably be better than Gibson. As Mad Max, though, Hardy was a Terminator. I think Gibson tended to be more deadpan than stone-faced.

 

[Octoberist]

Mel's more calculating than Tom's Max. Tom was more cerebral and mad.

 

[Octoberist]

That is true. I wouldn't say i'm on it's dick lol. But it's so refreshing to see something like this made nowadays. It's like the anti-blockbuster. It's weird, it's violent... and it had a 150 million dollar budget. It's good to see a film this size that is purely the directors vision... not a film made by a committee.

Hopefully this is a success, not just because i want a sequel, but because maybe the money men in Hollywood will start thinking that investing a lot of money in R rated action movies is worthwhile.

It happens to every movie, and every actor and director. It's almost moot.

 

[Octoberist]

It says "Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky" in the first 10 seconds. Kind of unambiguous. Also, we know what happened to The Feral Kid, he became the leader of "the great Northern tribe".

And in his opening narration, Max says he was once a cop, which The Feral Kid never was.

Also, in The Road Warrior, the old 'Feral Kid' said he never saw Max again. So it would hard to inherent his car, his jacket and knee brace, wouldn't it??

 

[SlamAdams]

Mel's more calculating than Tom's Max. Tom was more cerebral and mad.

I don't really agree with this assessment.

 

[SlamAdams]

Also, in The Road Warrior, the old 'Feral Kid' said he never saw Max again. So it would hard to inherent his car, his jacket and knee brace, wouldn't it??

He wouldn't necessarily have to inherit it. He could have cobbled it together based on his memory. Not that I think Hardy is actually playing the Feral Kid. I was just really interested in that suggestion back when it was in development hell

 

[Octoberist]

How..about: Mel's Max was more of a fox, while Tom's Max was more of a wolf.

 

[Octoberist]

He wouldn't necessarily have to inherit it. He could have cobbled it together based on his memory. Not that I think Hardy is actually playing the Feral Kid. I was just really interested in that suggestion back when it was in development hell

I don't buy it though I'm not oppose to the idea.

I prefer the 'legends of Max' being told by different people, making him a larger than life mythical character. Like their world's version of Robin Hood.

 

[SlamAdams]

How..about: Mel's Max was more of a fox, while Tom's Max was more of a wolf.

I get that. Cerebral just didn't feel right.

 

[Octoberist]

Cerebral is more on Tom's acting, that some folks didn't get. The grunts, the occasional awkward way in which he speaks (like saying 'hey') is more on his character not speaking for months, maybe years. Miller even said this version of Max has a form PTSD, but it's all done in somewhat subtle ways and was never vocally addressed.

 

[The Endless]

Mel's Max never really seemed that "mad" to me. He was more shell shocked i think. Like the Feral Kid said "A burnt out shell of a man". But yea he was more calculating, in Road Warrior there are scenes where you see the cogs turning in his head.

Hardy's Max definitely seemed a bit insane. With all the visions and his weird twitches. He seemed a bit more barbaric and running on pure instinct.

 

[craigdbfan]

I watched Mad Max (1979) last night as a refresher to compare Gibson and Hardy's performance and they're actually a lot more similar than different. Mel also had a very unhinged quality to him. He's not as far gone as Hardy's iteration but the traits of someone on the cusp of getting there are definitely present.

I get what Octoberist is saying he's more calculating. The death traps he sets up in the first film definitely fit in the calculated column whereas Hardy was just a constant barrage of fury (no pun intended).

 

[Octoberist]

Mel's Max never really seemed that "mad" to me. He was more shell shocked i think. Like the Feral Kid said "A burnt out shell of a man". But yea he was more calculating, in Road Warrior there are scenes where you see the cogs turning in his head.

Hardy's Max definitely seemed a bit insane. With all the visions and his weird twitches. He seemed a bit more barbaric and running on pure instinct.

True. I think Mel's Max was more disconnected than mad.

 

[Schlosser85]

I watched Mad Max (1979) last night as a refresher to compare Gibson and Hardy's performance and they're actually a lot more similar than different. Mel also had a very unhinged quality to him. He's not as far gone as Hardy's iteration but the traits of someone on the cusp of getting there are definitely present.

I get what Octoberist is saying he's more calculating. The death traps he sets up in the first film definitely fit in the calculated coi lumn whereas Hardy was just a constant barrage of fury (no pun intended).

I didn't think they were all that different either. Gibson's Max is more cool, but Hardy's shows on a couple occasions that he's smart too.

Also, regarding some people not "getting" Tom Hardy, I can understand that. He's an unconventional quirky character actor who does offbeat things with his characters.

 

[Venomfan]

Boy, Max's accent is awful in the game.

Apparently the voice actor is Australian, so accent should be fine

 

[ThePhantasm]

I don't think we've really seen enough of Hardy's Max to fully compare him with Mel. I felt like I was only starting the understand Hardy's version of the character when the film ended.

 

[Schlosser85]

It's hard to tell in the movie what Hardy is going for with his accent. It's like ambiguously British/Australian, but in some lines he slips into more like his real voice, and other times he almost sounds American.

 

[djsunyc]

i felt weird leaving the movie. it was like one huge action sequence with only a 3-4 min break in the middle. i'm still not sure if i liked it or not. i didn't have a chance to breathe. the action was amazingly choreographed but overall as a movie, it was a bit relentless. again, i'm confused walking out of the theater after that.

 

[Anita18]

It's basically an indie film... with a big studio budget. Like George Miller was given 150 million and told to do whatever the **** he wanted. It's amazing. This is what action film making is all about. Not your CGI and green screen fests. I mean people bang on about the opening scene of Age of Ultron. That's nothing compared to what is in this film. This is real guerrilla film making. Peoples lives are actually at risk in this film and it looks so much better. When people scoff at action films, saying they are a lesser form of movie... they need to watch this. This makes action art. It's real film making.

This is like the Apocalypse Now of the 21st century.

I was reading a review that marveled at its existence, describing it akin to "Miller kidnapped $150 million from Hollywood and ran to the Namibian desert with it, sending back footage like the amputated body parts of a hostage."