![]() In the wasteland of overly-plotted, incomprehensible “action” spectacles that is our current cinema-scape, our hearts have apparently grown fond of the kinds of films we enjoyed a century ago. It’s just been a while since we’ve seen it. The three chase scenes that begin, energize the middle, and end this film are among the most frantic chase scenes I’ve seen since Buster Keaton climbed aboard his trusty locomotive in The General, which is to say, what you see in Fury Road has been done before. This is a feat considering the energy of Fury Road’s action set pieces. The heroes have bigger hearts, of course, and Miller is glad to give them all room to grieve in this movie. Joe may be a monster, but he’s a monster with a heart. ![]() Even the film’s villain, the ironically named Immortan Joe, sincerely mourns his losses (even as he contributes to the grief of many others by using others’ bodies to perpetuate his own family line). In Fury Road, that light shines on the way these beleaguered captives of this post-apocalyptic wasteland mourn the loss of those they care about. The darkness of George Miller’s post-apocalyptic world demonstrates both.Īs dark as Miller’s movie universes can get, he always cracks open the sky just enough to let the light break through. There’s a beautifully twisted sensibility at work behind this film, one that understands both the frailty and the resilience of people’s bodies and spirits. Watch it.įury Road returns Miller’s own palate to him again, and he splashes his canvas with rust, blood, mud, smoke, silver spray paint, motor oil, and bodily fluids you’re best off discovering for yourself. He always has been, and he even finds ways to bring those skills to unlikely movie properties like the glorious Babe: Pig in the City. Writer/director/maestro of mayhem George Miller is a master of action choreography and production design. In other words, it’s the movie “of the moment” with enough somethings included to make anyone’s eyes light up who likes to have anything to say about movies. Mad Max: Fury Road is an apocalyptic rumination mixed with a gender-role deliberation fueled by a body-centric economic system augmented with religiosity as tribal accouterment all wrapped up in a franchise extension with a violence-as-spectacle bow on top.
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