Hooniverse Asks: Have You Seen Mad Max Fury Road? How'd You Like It?

MadMaxFuryRoad
It was decades in the making, a righteous continuation of a venerated movie canon, and now that it’s been out in the theaters for a couple of weeks, we want to know if you’ve seen Mad Max Fury Road and if so, did you like it?
I saw it opening weekend, and I found it to be outstanding. I did have a couple of issues with it however – mostly stemming from my comprehensive knowledge of the first three Mad Max outings. I didn’t take issue with Tom Hardy stepping into Max’s leg brace and Concorde-nosed Ford Interceptor, I accept that Mel Gibson is probably too old and carries too much baggage to have played Max a fourth time. I also didn’t mind (SPOILER ALERT) the fact that Max is actually a secondary character in the film, the lead actually having been Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. No, what I found troubling was that Max was (SPOILER ALERT) vexed by visions of a little girl who obviously took umbrage in his failing her somehow. This bugged me because as we all know, Max and his wife (R.I.P.) had a son. Who was this kid?
What about you, have you seen the film? Did you also love it but come away with some elements sticking in your craw as well?
Image: Blastr

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  1. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    Here is the movie, for those who haven’t already seen it. Two Maxes, one of which is a Fury, go head-to-head.

    1. PotbellyJoe★★★★★ Avatar
      PotbellyJoe★★★★★

      That’s mad.

    2. Tiberiuswise Avatar

      I bet the red one wins.

    3. CraigSu Avatar
      CraigSu

      And it’s on a road! (Of sorts).

  2. JayP Avatar
    JayP

    Saw it, loved it, I’ll see it again.
    Way too much going on to worry about continuity across the 4 films.

  3. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    Haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve acquired the first three and watched number one. Looking forward to get up to date on an iconic series like that!

    1. JayP Avatar
      JayP

      Watched in order with the kid…
      After watching Thunderdome: Dad- this is kinda going downhill.
      After watching FuryRoad: Dad- When’s the next movie?

  4. Simon BiTurbo Avatar
    Simon BiTurbo

    Saw it. Utterly fantastic film. Haven’t been that continually awed by a film for a while.
    The only thing that was bugging me is the level of change within Max’s lifetime. It’s gone from ‘slightly dystopian future with d*ckhead biker gangs’ when Max is in his 20s, to ‘endless desert landscape ruled by malformed Valhalla-worshipping tribes’ when Max is (presumably) in his 40s.
    TBH I don’t overly much care. It’s more an exploration of culture at different stages of societal collapse and rebirth, with ‘Max’ as a semi-mythical relatable character linking the films, rather than a character development story where timescales matter. Plus it’s got loads of really really cool dystopian future car-related action and devolved language…

    1. Maymar Avatar
      Maymar

      To be fair, the level of post-apocalyptic hasn’t changed too much since The Road Warrior, and I believe it was mostly budgetary issues that kept Mad Max sort of grounded. There’s definitely a lot more sheen with more money and 30 years of progress, but the Ayatolla of Rock n’ Rolla would fit right in with Fury Road.

  5. needthatcar Avatar
    needthatcar

    I thought it was boring. Eye popping effects? Yes. Awesome vehicles? Yes. All of which are covered in the first ten minutes of the film. After that, rinse and repeat….for two hours. Heck, even the vehicles were kind of stupid. Aren’t they supposed to be cobbled-together contraptions? The monster truck was the dumbest.
    The contrived element of feminism felt like it was shoehorned in there as well. “Here, you shoot the gun because you are better at it.” (4″ from the dude’s ear, no less. If we’ve learned anything from Archer, it’s that that causes tinnitus.) I’ll give it 2 of 5 stars.

    1. wunno sev Avatar
      wunno sev

      if anything, the feminism displayed by the film was notable because it wasn’t contrived at all, i thought. the role of the strong female lead was very natural.
      it was a feminist movie in the sense that it dispensed with traditional gender roles in favor of placing the characters on equal footing. i dunno, perhaps we can read something into the fact that society had to be entirely destroyed for that to happen.
      but IMO, that scene with the rifle was a product of the equal footing the film established for its male and female characters, not a contrivance to establish it. if traditional themes in movies didn’t make us expect that only the man could make that shot, nobody would have batted an eye.
      just my thoughts, man. i don’t entirely agree with you on the nature of the feminism in the film.

  6. XRSevin Avatar
    XRSevin

    I thought it was spectacular!

  7. jeepjeff Avatar
    jeepjeff

    I saw it opening weekend. I loved it. No gripes. I wasn’t worried about continuity; I never felt like the first three films were linked tightly enough for it to actually matter. I got two hours of V8 growls assaulting my ears and the script was not a crappy retread of “Save the Cat” (if you don’t know what that is, don’t look it up: it will ruin most movies for you). Best action film to hit the big screen in a long time. I am going to watch it again. Many times.

    1. theskitter Avatar

      Excessively long quote to basically say that I’ve never heard of Save the Cat, misread your instruction and looked it up, and agree that great work cannot be done with a checklist. Also, though there was audio for this:
      “It’s the crank-turners fault. I think the crank-turners replaced the critic as the real angel of death as far as literary movements are concerned, now. You get some bona fide artists who come along and really divide by zero and weather some serious shit-storms of shock and ridicule in order to promulgate some really important ideas. Once they triumph, though, and their ideas become legitimate and accepted, the crank-turners and wannabes come running to the machine, and out pour the gray pellets and now the whole thing’s become a hollow form, just another institution of fashion… Academia and commercial culture have somehow become these gigantic mechanisms of commodification that drain the weight and color out of even the most radical new advances. It’s a surreal inversion of the death-by-neglect that used to kill off prescient art. Now prescient art suffers death-by acceptance. We love things to death, now. Then we retire to the Hamptons.” – DFW

  8. theshiftpattern Avatar
    theshiftpattern

    I loved it! And the Doof Warrior provided some good comic relief.

  9. faberferrum Avatar
    faberferrum

    It was awesome! And pretty much bonkers from start to finish. The one thing that bugged me was the ‘brides’ running around in sheets the whole time. You’d think if you were planning to run away across the desert some servicable khakis could have been sourced. But on the whole, it was excellent.

    1. manchowder440 Avatar
      manchowder440

      khakis? sheets? they shoulda been naked! or at least some kinky dirty leathers!

  10. Fuhrman16 Avatar
    Fuhrman16

    I thought it was good, but not nearly as good as Mad Max 2: the Road Warrior, but better than the other two. It seemed as if it was more of a reboot of the franchise than an actual sequel, which I’m OK with. It could have made due with a little more plot and there were a couple of over the top, obviously CGI bits that I found distracting and unfitting of the movie (particularly the tornado scene and the part towards the end were a dude rips a blower off a running engine with his bare hands).

  11. Krautwursten Avatar
    Krautwursten

    Great entertainment, but in all honesty too much of the engine noises were drowned by the all encompassing heavy metal orchestra music.

  12. MattC Avatar
    MattC

    I loved it. Tom Hardy is a 10 as Max. It is essentially one long chase movie (which in theory could go horribly wrong but in Miller’s hands went so well done). There are impeccably stages stunts and I was generally impressed on actual effects without an over reliance on CGI(yes there were some CGI effects for weather, etc). I am old enough to have seen The Road Warrior when I was a teen and I thought that this was a great reboot. I also paid absolutely no heed to the “feminism propaganda” spouted on the old interwebs. It is a big, bombastic, perverse, ultimately fun action movie.

  13. Tiberiuswise Avatar

    I liked it. I thought it was absurd, in a good way. I will gladly watch it again on TV.
    The only problem was that it wasn’t a Max Max film at all. To say that Max is a secondary character is not quite accurate. He’s gone from Captain Kirk to Lieutenant Leslie. Seriously, can you say there is one legitimate reason why his character wasn’t named Eddie and the movie called Imperator Furiosa: Fury Road?

  14. Top-dead-centre Avatar
    Top-dead-centre

    I loved it. Definitely in line with the second two Mad Max films, but stripped down with very little dialog, very little exposition, and not much plot (even less than usual for the series…) to complicate things.
    If you haven’t yet, read up on the hot-rod builds of the various cars and trucks. Great stuff.
    Mrs TDC has never seen a Mad Max movie. I explained what she was about to see thusly: it’s the demolition derby equivalent of a post-nuclear war heavy metal concert. She still thinks I’m nuts.

  15. karonetwentyc Avatar
    karonetwentyc

    Saw it, liked it overall, thought it was a good continuation of the first three. The feel has changed a bit over the originals, but that’s to be expected after a 30-year hiatus.
    There was one thing that bugged me, though, and it involved the War Rig: the engine sounds that were used for it were definitely diesel – but it’s sucking down air through a giant supercharger with what looks to be a carburettor on top of it.
    Click the image link at your peril; it’s freaking huge. Still, it was the only one I could find that did a worthwhile job of showing what it is that I’m talking about.
    https://i.imgur.com/9aYIhpi.jpg

  16. Tank Avatar
    Tank

    Saw it and loved it. At first I thought the Doof Warrior part was kind of dumb, but then I realized its a Mad Max movie and relaxed about it. Its supposed to be a little silly

  17. Cool_Cadillac_Cat Avatar
    Cool_Cadillac_Cat

    I’ve been anticipating Mad Max 4 four a few decades, now, and from what I can see, the only thing which truly bothers me is his Interceptor is used early on. Those of who’ve seen all of them, even that mental vomit which was Thunderdome, know it doesn’t survive to the third movie.
    I’ll see it, but at home…after I hook up the better bi-pole surrounds.