After waiting a year or something I finally got to see this, and it's visually out of this world - narratively not so much.
The film is quite spectacular, and aspects of it are simply brilliant. However it's quite clear that Miller, in preparation for a revisit/reboot, looked at all his previous Max movies and decided the best bits were the chases, which is by and large absolutely true, especially in Thunderdome.
For me, if I knew Miller was going to do an entire new Mad Max that was 85% car chase, I'd have an instant movie hard-on. And he delivered that and then some.
From the top then. The aesthetic is wonderful. The character designs are fantastic and the Mad Max theme is right on the money. The vehicles are spectacular, the effects award-winning, and the blending of CG mostly inoffensive. The only aspect of the visuals I disliked was the occasional too heavy image tinting. The orange worked for the desert, but some of the nighttime blue, which looked as though it was actually a day shoot converted to look like night time, didn't sit so well. Otherwise it was pretty incredible because it's padded out with so much stunt work and real carnage.
Problem is Miller didn't quite strike a balance, and that surprised me. It's not a better film overall than Road Warrior, even if I can freely admit that the action sequences are unrivalled in terms of visual impact. It's the type of movie that doesn't need much plot at all, and there were threads of plot carried by each character anyway, while Max is the medium around which the hell transpires - as if he's the eye of the storm.
But Max was a secondary character. Tom Hardy's performance was, once again, disappointingly airy and non-committal. He brought nothing to the character and certainly didn't top Mel Gibson. But this was hampered further by the fact Furiosa was the protagonist and he was a guy along for the ride. In-fact, she was in the driving seat, literally, for most of the movie - telling Max to scoot over before the engine is even fired.
As a weighting, it didn't quite satisfy. Gibson's Max had a bit more mystique because his motivations were always unclear until he decided to go out on a limb and start tearing people to pieces. Road Warrior is certainly the best example of this because his change of heart is like a stone mill: not easily forthcoming. But it's the lulls in action in Road Warrior that give a sense of suspense; the opportunities given to the Humungous and his horde to dictate overwhelming odds and fear, insanity and danger. After which Max sides with the oppressed and you get one of the greatest comeuppances-by-car-chase in movie history.
It was never much of a plot, but it had just enough character development to fix your attention. Fury Road is so OTT that it actually starts to overwhelm at points and your attention starts to wane. There aren't enough sequences where you can focus on either Max, Furiosa, or the enemies for quite long enough. They're all there, but in tiny bits: a line from Max, a line from Furiosa, wedged under a massive glut of technical mastery going at full throttle and a rather poor supporting female cast. I didn't mind the angle and I went into it remembering Miller said there was no intended feminist connection. But probably by virtue of all the feminist bullshit surrounding media currently I couldn't quite shake off a niggling feeling of a scriptwriter perhaps influenced by current social politics.
That wasn't really important though.
In the end, I absolutely know I have to see it again. It was almost too much too take in and I think I was perhaps too hyped after such a long wait. But, that aside I still think the balance was out. Despite loving so many things about it, I think it needed just a few minutes more to catch it's breath and take a moment to character develop so we can be more invested in the fates of our heroes, rather than the outcome of the action circus.
, Ex Machina was indeed fantastic.
