re: Mad Max SPOILERS

Movie rocked start to finish. Took me a minute to figure out what was going on but after that it was great. Miller uses scenes and action to tell his story. If people, myself included, can't figure it out without narration or dialogue, too bad (he feels). I have found some of my slower friends/family thought it was "dumb"

I just came across this guys opinion on imdb and he hits the nail on the head exactly for me


I am truly baffled

89/100 on metacritic, 98% on rottentomatoes with an average rating of 8,8/10 and (as of now) 8,9/10 on imdb and thus voted the #25 best film ever. Holy *beep* I have never felt so completely alienated about anything my entire life as I do with Mad Max: Fury Road and the reception that this film has gotten from both audiences and critics.

Before you all verbally assault me for my blasphemy let me say that I liked this film. I LIKED it but I came no where near loving it and at no point did it even cross my mind to consider it a contender for "Best Action Movie EVER" or even "Best Action Movie the LAST TEN YEARS" as an incredible amount of critics have apparently hailed it as being.

I'm initially gonna keep this as short as possible as I'm expecting replies disagreeing with me will give rise to me further expanding my views of the film and to avoid tl;dr.

What I liked:
The technical aspects of the film; the direction and the way it was shot showed true and dedicated craftsmanship.

The look of the post-apocalyptic world was beautiful - major probs to the crew working production design.

The heavy use of practical effects over CGI.

The musical score though I felt they missed an opportunity not incorporating the crazy guitar mutant more into it with metal riffs (they did a little, but not nearly enough imo).

Charlize Theron's character - her performance was great and she was by far the character I connected to and cared about the most.

What I didn't like:
Being thrown right into the action from the get go. The entire first action sequence (while visually and technically well executed) did nothing for me. I know nothing about any of the characters yet which means I'm not invested in them/care about them which means it doesn't matter how impressively shot, executed and action packed this entire sequence is - if I don't fear for the characters' lives and well being then the action falls flat entirely.

Max became a supporting character in his own movie and I found it hard to connect/care for him almost until the end of the film. I don't know if Miller expected people to be familiar enough with his character from the original movies, either way the vague flash backs on their own were not sufficient for me to get invested in his character. To me Max had little to no character to him at all.

Some of the action sequences were drawn out to the point were it got just a little exhausting/boring watching them. I felt that a few more breaks in between or during them with dialogue/character development would have helped immensely (I know this makes me sound like a granpa, I'm actually 25).

After what has essentially been one long chase scene going from A to B, returning to A for the ending felt a little anti-climactic (This being a minor dislike as I think the plan about blowing the gorge and claiming the citadel was clever and logical enough).

All in all I feel like audiences and critics alike have let the impressive technical achievements of the film overshadow it's lack of character and substance. I know the go to answer to that will be: "It's a freaking action movie dude, not a drama!" True, but without an engaging plot and/or characters I feel invested in, the action scenes (impressive as they may be) become entirely irrelevant - which is why it (to me at least) seems ludicrous to suggest this being better than for example Die Hard or Terminator II etc.

7/10 seems right to me.

Yeah I agree. I just thought his likes and dislikes of the movie were the exact same as mine

Just watched it. It was exactly what I thought it would be. A very fun popcorn movie experience. Visually stunning and relentless and you really felt at times like you were in the thick of the hunt with everyone.

I agree with the critic they missed a huge opportunity to use the guitar guys riffs integrated with the score.

Theron was OK when she wasn't talking. When she spoke I cringed. Thankfully she didn't talk much.

Hardy was good but he didn't have real character at all to work with...run jump shoot.

The war boys were the most interesting part of the movie for me.

Worth watching for a fun popcorn flick that you can check your. Brain at the door.

Am I the only one who didn't realize that Furiosa only had part of her left arm for probably the first third of the movie? it took me until the scene where Max was still chained up and he, Furiosa and Nux were all fighting

I went to see the movie solely based on it's 99% rating on RT. I dragged my girlfriend to this movie saying, "It got 99%! Nothing gets 99% it must be the greatest movie of all time!"

After we got out of the movie I apologized to her because it definitely wasn't 99% worthy, it's not even 90% worthy TBH.

I like this sort of over-the-top, ball to the wall type stuff, but it weighed heavily on me after awhile. This movie will exhaust you and leave you sort of jaded towards all the explosions and twisted metal.

In no way do I think it deserves it's 99% rating, but it was a good movie. 89% would be much more realistic. It makes me wonder if the studio just systematically paid off all the critics to get that rating...

You don't know how rotten tomatoes works

So far in this thread someone has complained about Max not talking enough...Is that what you wanted???

My only problem was why on earth did Charlize have an American accent??

quote:

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You don't know how rotten tomatoes works

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Well 99% would suggest that 99/100 people would enjoy this movie. That is not the case though as there are a good deal of people that would not find this movie enjoyable. So why the 99%??

quote:

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Well 99% would suggest that 99/100 people would enjoy this movie. That is not the case though as there are a good deal of people that would not find this movie enjoyable. So why the 99%??

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that's not what it mean at all. it means 99% of reviewers found the movie "favorable"

read saintsfan's explanation. it doesn't mean the score is 99/100. it means 99% of critics that saw it thought it was enjoyable. you could have 100 critics giving it a 7/10 and it would be a 100%