Mad Max - Fury Road

[radiator]

I saw a rough cut last summer and felt the movie had more than a few shortcomings.

So have they made changes to the film since the cut you saw, or did you just come around to it more?

[blackmocco]

I think a bit of both. The movie's essentially the same as the rough cut but obviously, the fx are now finished for one thing. Generally the movie was much leaner. Lot of trimming up. Great music score too.

[JOE SOAP]

There's a 2 hour presentation by DOP John Seale (like George Miller also in his 70's) and 2nd Unit cameraman David Burr (no spring chicken either). The stunts are all real but there was a lot of post-production.


https://vimeo.com/127381179

[Hawkmumbler]

Well, i'm off to watch Fury Road. I'm more than a little excited.

[Simon Beigh]

I don't do cinemas. It's very rare I make a trip. But I am such a HUGE Mad Max fan, I'm seriously considering a trip when I'm off work in a couple of weeks time. Now I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to theme park rides and such like so have always been put off IMAX and 3D because of motion sickness. I have no idea if 3D and IMAX cause motion sickness, by the way, but it's always put me off...

I first saw Mad Max 2 in the 90s on a late night BBC 2 film season called Moviedome presented by a certain Mark Kermode. I watched it on a portable 14" colour TV in my bedroom and was blown away at how awesome it was. I so wanted a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe some day! Anyway, I want to see Fury Road in a slightly better definition... So what should I do?

Should I see it at our local IMAX, or should I play it safe with the old motion sickness and stick with 2D?

[blackmocco]

You need to see it in a theater. That is all.

[ming]

Oh hey, did you spot the Gyrocopter Captain's skull in there...? Haha!

And wasn't it booby trapped?  It appeared to explode, anyway (as far as I could see) which seemed quite fitting, somehow.

Fantastic film; amazed by the relentlessness from start to finish (and the missus loved it too) and a repeat viewing is definitely on the cards.

[Hawkmumbler]

Somebody hold my head still, i'm still spinning!

That was...INSANE! I...I.I.I....Have no words. That was simply, the mutts nuts.

Now. AGAIN! AGAIN!!!!

[inkymonkey]

There is an "Art of" book, out day going by Amazon, and I hope it includes some of Mr McCarthy's early design work.

Fingers (and claws) crossed.

Dunk!

DC also have a comic tie-in out next week, apparently co-written by Miller himself; http://www.midtowncomics.com/store/dp.asp?PRID=1420204

Yup, the first issue out next Wednesday... the stories of Nux (Nicholas Hoult's character) and the Immortan.  Next month, Furiosa and the Wives... then the following two months, a Max prequel which might answer a few questions..!

[radiator]

Now THAT was a blockbuster. Upstages Age of Ultron in spectacular fashion. Absolutely fantastic film. Ticked all the boxes for me. Lean, mean and refreshingly weird. Much like Dredd, it drops you right in and is a masterclass of economical visual storytelling. Simple, propulsive story with enough thematic heft to be rewarding and what a spectacle.

Loved it. 5/5.

[radiator]

LOVED the visual design. Charlize Theron smashed it out of the park. Would happily go and see it again.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

At least it will be likely to get a sequel. Unlike... oh God! >sniff< #sob, blubber....

[BPP]

At least it will be likely to get a sequel. Unlike... oh God! >sniff< #sob, blubber....

Well it IS basically just The Raid on a skedway, right?

[blackmocco]

I've seen it three times now and it just gets more rewarding. The attention to detail is sublime. Lot of talk about it being Furiosa's movie in place of Max's but I'm not feeling that. Even in MM2 and Thunderdome, it's someone else's story Max gets pulled into (Hardy likens Max to The Littlest Hobo in interviews). My tuppence is that Hardy is eclipsed by Theron as an actor in this case. He's a fantastic actor, but he comes across as somewhat lightweight in FR. Won't go too far into alternate realities, but Gibson had a bit more presence as Max and made him more of a thinker. Hardy plays up the more physical, brutish side of the character.

[JOE SOAP]

It's much madder than previous Max films and watching it you realise just how much George Miller got away with when convincing Warner into giving him the money by bamboozling them with thousands of story-boards and ensconcing himself Kurtz-like in Namibia. Apart from a few things I felt it needed more of like [spoiler]the sojourn with All-Mother's before they turn back[/spoiler], I loved it.

Lot of talk about it being Furiosa's movie in place of Max's but I'm not feeling that. Even in MM2 and Thunderdome, it's someone else's story Max gets pulled into (Hardy likens Max to The Littlest Hobo in interviews). My tuppence is that Hardy is eclipsed by Theron as an actor in this case. He's a fantastic actor, but he comes across as somewhat lightweight in FR. Won't go too far into alternate realities, but Gibson had a bit more presence as Max and made him more of a thinker. Hardy plays up the more physical, brutish side of the character.

Yeah, some actors are preternaturally suited to be on-screen and by seemingly doing nothing are doing everything. It's inexplicable how it works and if Charlize Theron never uttered a single word throughout the film it wouldn't matter. She's that good.

Hardy's Max is elemental and animalistic and he plays Max as a resourceful underdog which works, though I wish they'd left his [spoiler]flashbacks, V.O. and the ghost voices of his past[/spoiler] on the cutting floor. They feel throwaway and are at odds with the film's quiet parts where they most likely belong as proper scenes (The Road Warrior does Max's intro better in that regard) and there's better ways to say, or rather show, he was a cop before the war. The film is otherwise so confident in itself  it really didn't need that kind of spoon-feeding and it keeps cropping up during periods of Max's reluctance when a change of mind could be be better played on the face of an actor of Hardy's calibre which is how a younger George Miller would've likely played it.

Hardy is still great though it's easy to imagine an older Gibson do this kind of story.

The attention to detail is sublime.

Seeing the essential American obsession with the automobile as a symbol of personal freedom reduced to a fundamental car-cult religion is genius and you can really see the hand of Brendan McCarthy all over this - it's easy to imagine the Judda living just down the road.