The following is a little more than I normally write… I have been working on this for a few months now and it is finally complete. Enjoy!

TL;DR Mad Max: Fury Road isn’t MEDIOCRE

“Mad Max: Fury Road” isn’t good, great, or even fantastic. “Mad Max: Fury Road” (I will refer to it as MMFR from now on) is a modern masterpiece. Never before have I seen a film so brash, crazy, and overall unapologetic in all my life. I am a big fan of the originals, and all though this may sound like heresy, I believe MMFR transcends its predecessors. Sure, the originals were fantastic and simple stories helmed terrifically. However, when it comes to lasting impact, story, and cinematography they cannot hold a candle to the latest entry. MMFR isn’t just the greatest action movie ever made, but one of the most unique, fresh, and gorgeous films to have been released in the past twenty-five years. In this (somewhat coherent) article I will defend this thesis by comparing it to other action films released and by discussing in depth the films: redefinition of the action genre, cinematography, story, characters, pacing, soundtrack, and its use of special effects.

This WILL HAVE SPOILERS, if you have not seen the film yet, GO SEE IT NOW (it is now on Bluray, DVD and VOD) and read my spoiler-free review here.

Action films have been around for a long time. One of the phrases I hear more often than I’d like to is, “They don’t make films like they used to these days.” This phrase when applied to any medium I find extremely unfounded and pretentious. I hear it used the most when discussing Film and Music. Bad movies and music have been around forever. However, I do understand where these people get these notions. Movies today are much bigger than they ever have been. In the 1960’s and prior very few films were released in theaters, they were more special of an event. Now movies are being released all the time. Every weekend at least 5-10 big budget movies are released it seems like. Movies make big money. Probably the biggest cash cow in the industry currently is the action movie genre. There is much debate as to what the first modern action movie as we know it is, but in my mind the answer is quite clear. The 1988 action classic “Die Hard”. The film skyrocketed Bruce Willis into one of most iconic actors of the genre. After that you had the films like “The Terminator”, “The Matrix”, and more recently “The Dark Knight”. The typical action movie has always been pretty cut and dry. Save for the more recent “The Matrix” and the new Batman films they have adhered strictly to the preconceptions of its audience. Pretty much all action films prior to MMFR follow a typical structure. Exposition in the beginning to get the viewer involved, conventional dialogue/drama to progress the story, and an ending where it all comes together. MMFR takes all those known preconceptions and conventions and throws them out the door. Even the original films followed a more structured beginning. MMFR opens with the roaring sound of a V8 engine. It starts with a chase and really doesn’t stop. Action films typically play to the audience’s idea of how an action movie should be. From the get go Miller rips the viewer out of his/her seat, slams their face in the dirt, and straps them to the back of a spikey car going 100mph. I really love the way Kenneth Brown of blu-ray.com put it in his review of the film,

“Is Miller’s brash, unrelenting style divisive? Sure. Is Fury Road for everyone? Absolutely not. Does it matter? Not a bit.” – Kenneth Brown

In my introduction I used the word “unapologetic”. Usually that has a negative connotation. In this case I mean that as the highest compliment. You can tell that Miller poured his heart and soul into this film. He made this movie the way HE intended it to be made not the movie everyone expected it to be. Now THAT is bold.

The second reason MMFR is so stunning is its cinematography. So many post-apocalyptic films/tv shows/games are so dark and dreary. Miller has every frame exuding with bright and saturated color. Every explosion erupts off the screen. Miller also knows how to direct the viewer’s attention. Chris Stuckmann, a YouTube movie critic, did a fantastic video on The Problem with Action Movies Today. In this video he goes over a lot of different reasons, however the most important being the way action is presented. Shaky cam, is my number one pet peeve when it comes to film. There are a select few movies where it can be utilized effectively. In order to describe in detail what shaky cam is (and how AWFUL it is) I need to go back to its origin. Shaky cam was initially popularized by the Bourne Ultimatum in 2007. Director Paul Greengrass filmed all the action sequences in the film using a shaky camera. Whenever there was a fight or chase the camera moved about and jiggled giving the scene a more off beat, unpredictable and tense feel. The film was a box office hit and ever since then this technique has become more and more prevalent. The first time I realized just how bad the overuse of shaky cam had become was when I watched the first Hunger Games movie. I admittedly am not really a fan of the books, I thought they were ok but I went and saw the film with some friends. It actually wasn’t so bad until they got to the fight in the Cornucopia. Because the film was PG-13 and aimed at pre-teens they couldn’t show too much bloodshed on screen. However, what they did instead was worse. During the entire scene the camera was jolting all over the place. A flash of a blade here, then someone falling down there. The shots were not logically sequenced and just left the viewer confused. It was atrocious. Instead of building tension through dialogue/visuals filmmakers take the lazy way out and toss the camera around like a football. Fight choreography takes lots of time and effort. When done right, the results are often spectacular. Perfect examples of this are The Raid Redemption, John Wick, and more recently Mad Max: Fury Road. All the fights and action sequences are steady and smooth. Allowing the viewer to focus exclusively on every bit of the insanity presented on screen. In film making there is a technique used called “Eye Trace”. In the video essay How Mad Max: Fury Road Directed YOU! Kyle of The Film Theorists explains it in great detail. Eye Trace is the distance your eyes move from frame to frame. In an action movie it needs to be very minimal in order to keep the viewer’s attention and not confuse them. MMFR does this impeccably. This particular aspect of the film has been analyzed over and over so it would be redundant for me to say anything more. If you want to know more about it watch their video, it is excellent.

What separates MMFR from being just another great action movie is its terrific visual narrative and story. Even in the original Mad Max films hardly any words are said. One of my favorite genres watch are silent films. Some of my favorites are Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” and of course all of Charlie Chaplin’s films. Miller has been vocal about his love for silent film. In an interview for Australian Screen he talked about his love for silent films and his desire to make a silent action film.

“With the first Mad Max I basically wanted to make a silent movie, with sound. The kind of movie that Hitchcock would say, ’You didn’t have to read the subtitles in Japan.’ A film that basically played like a silent movie. For me, once I got interested in cinema as moving pictures, I went back to the silent era.” – George Miller

Miller doesn’t always seem concerned about what the characters say, he is more concerned about their actions. This is one of the greatest visual narratives ever told. You could actually watch the movie without any sound and fully understand what is going on. The film, as most people have said, is essentially a two hour chase scene. However, somewhere in there Miller has an emotional story. A lot of times films come with a message. A great movie will not just shove a message down your throat, but it will be present enough to be noticed but not too blatant. The film “Avatar” by James Cameron was visually stunning but the story and its message was about as subtle as a brick to the face. A better example would be Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer a terrific action film on the surface, but underneath is a brilliant critique of class culture and capitalism. Nerd Writer has an excellent video analysis of the film. MMFR has a quite literal subtext of feminism and rejection of a patriarchal society. Inside the chamber where Immortan Joe’s Wives are held captive scrawled on the wall are the phrases,

Our babies will not become war lords

WE ARE NOT THINGS

Who killed the world?

Quite a few people have called the film a feminist movie, but I really think that is short changing it. The phrase that stands out the most to me is “WE ARE NOT THINGS”. This is referring to the wives being used as breeders, the mothers being used only for milk, Max being used as a literal blood bag, but I also believe that it refers to the war boys themselves. All the war boys are treated as commodities. They are everywhere and their sole purpose on this earth is to die for The Immortan. The film isn’t strictly about feminism but a more broad respect of humanity. In the world we are shown by Miller, society has crumbled. The film has little tid-bits of info as to how this happened. In the opening sequence of the film there is a mini back story montage where it depicts the nations of the world fighting over dwindling commodities. The main ones being water and “guzzoline”. The quote “Who killed the world?” refers to us as humans. We were the ones who fought needlessly against one another and let tyrants like Immortan Joe rise to power. There is a quote that Max says to Furiosa that perfectly encapsulates this theory,

“You know, hope is a mistake. If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll… you’ll go insane.” – Max Rockatansky

Max realizes later in his arc that hope is actually back in the Citadel, where they came from. A lot of the times post apocalypse movies are dismal and end bitter. MMFR is a story about redemption and hope. What is so brilliant about the film is all these things I am discussing are not even really mentioned, but can be easily inferred by the viewer. Miller doesn’t spoon feed us a story, he lets the viewer decide what it means to them. To me, THAT is a sign of a phenomenal film.

Characters are what ultimately connect you to a film. You could have a film with the best special effects, soundtrack, action, and cinematography but without memorable characters you are left with an empty shell. A perfect example of this is, in my opinion, “Jurassic World”. I finally got around to watching it the other day and I thought it was merely ok. I was initially going to write a review on it but I honestly don’t have much to say about it. It had pretty good CGI effects, dinos, and some cool cinematography. The thing that it lacked, which made it pale in comparison to the original for me, was the lack of any good character development. But I digress, this is about MMFR not JW. Mad Max has always been a wanderer throughout the franchise. Save for the first film (his origin story) the others have always been about how he gets tangled up in other people’s problems. All the guy wants is guzzoline for his car. In a way he is kind of a jerk. In the beginning of MMFR he actually shoots one of the wives in the leg because was trying to get ahead of him into the war rig. His character over the course of the film however, develops more compassion towards Furiosa and the Wives as he learns more about their predicament. Honestly, what makes this film so much more than an action flick is the characters. Max, Furiosa, Nux, and of course the greatest on screen villain in decades Immortan Joe are fleshed out so well. Furiosa is the female heroine that steals the Wives and leads them to safety away from Joe. She is a powerful female lead that isn’t afraid to take matters into her own hands but still has a very realistic and empathetic side. Each of the Wives have some time in the limelight as well. In my mind though Nux has the greatest story arc of them all. Nux is a warboy that is using Max as his “bloodbag” so he can live. In the first chase scene he attempts to blow him and his car up in order to please Joe and die a martyr. At that point in time that is his end goal, he wants to die for Joe so he can ride into the gates of Valhalla. Over the course of the film he realizes how barbaric Joe and his henchman are. He ultimately dies by flipping the war rig in front of the pass so Max, Furiosa, and the Wives can all get away safely. He died not in vain, but as a sacrifice for others. Even the endlessly terrifying and barbaric Joe and his war party have moments where you can relate and empathize with them. When “Splendid” the pregnant wife was killed there was a moment where Rictus (Joe’s son) proclaimed,

“HE WAS PERFECT, PERFECT IN EVERY WAY” – Rictus Erectus

in reference to the boy that passed away inside her. You don’t need endless amounts of exposition and dialogue to have great character development. MMFR is a modern testament to this fact.

Pacing is another integral part of a film. When a director makes a movie he must consider how fast the movie is progressing. There is no one size fits all pace for all movies. Say for example in the crime drama The Godfather it is completely appropriate to use a slow burn technique where the story unfolds making the film longer than most. Action movies are the hardest to pace right. You need to keep the viewer still interested, but you have to be careful to have too many scenes. One of the films that I really enjoy is Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive. It was not a box office hit but critics praised it and it won Refn the Best Director award from the Cannes Film Festival. It is also a very visual story with a nameless antihero known only as “The Driver”. There are huge sections of the film where Ryan Gosling doesn’t say anything and uses his facial expressions to convey his feelings. The film has some issues but I like it because, like Miller, Refn wanted to do something different. His film just happens to have more of a niche appeal to a more art house type crowd. Refn’s pacing of the film is very methodical, some people said it was boring, but to me I thought it fit the tense atmosphere of the film. In the same way the pacing in MMFR is spot on, however instead of being slow and methodical it is at a break neck speed. There is a term referred to as “Chekhov’s Gun”. It comes from this quote from the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov,

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” – Anton Chekhov

Miller has clearly taken this sentiment to heart. The little details in the film that most people would over look are intricate. For example, after Max pulls out his blood transfusion line from Nux he coils it up and hooks it on his shoulder strap. He has this on his person the entirety of the film until eventually he saves Furiosa by give her some of his blood with the same tube. The film is littered with all sorts of these little details. Anything that Miller presents in the final cut is important. I have seen the film 5 times now and every time I love it more and more. I don’t think I have seen a film more endlessly watchable. Even some of my favorite films have bits that if I am pressed for time I can fast forward. There are none of those bits in this movie. There is no filler, in another words it isn’t a bloated mess like the last few Hobbit films.

The backbone of a classic movie is its soundtrack. We remember films like “Lord of the Rings” for its unique and easily distinguishable soundtrack. We remember “Jaws” for its simple but classic little theme. Soon we will remember Junkie XL’s soundtrack for MMFR. The sound track by Junkie XL for MMFR was one of the most pulse pounding and original works in the last 25 years. As an aspiring sound designer and composer, the production was immaculate. Whenever the action slowed down (on the few occasions it does) you can see the war party on the horizon and hear the engines and guitar. Tom Holkenberg (Junkie XL) even has a fantastic free series as to how he composed it and the mixing techniques he used. The main theme is the pounding sound of drums with a twisted amalgamation of metal, synth, and strings. There are some tracks later on that are soothing like “Many Mothers” when the Wives meet the Mothers. They feature a beautiful orchestral and sweet sound providing a foil to the gritty and abrasive sound of the theme.

Last but certainly not least the special effects of MMFR are utterly jaw dropping. A majority of the chases and action sequences are made with practical effects. All the cars were actually built by hand. In the featurette on the Bluray about the production they go into detail about each of the cars, it is really incredible. In another featurette they talk about how all the props in the movie have been re-purposed. They hired artists from around the world to dig through scrap and make steering wheels out of old telephones, baby dolls, and all manner of things. One of the items I found most unique was in the war rig driven by Furiosa. Her gas pedal is an old foot measurement ruler. She pushes it down and clicks it forward into place making the vehicle drive without her foot on it. This attention to detail is remarkable. Critics are hailing this film as the return of practical effects and this is mostly true. However, Miller wasn’t afraid to let CG animators do their work. Although all the stunts were performed on the road a lot of mountains, canyons, and storms were added in post production. I was shocked when I realized that the mountains weren’t actually real. The CG artists and Miller have perfectly melded reality with computer generated images. MMFR will go down in action movie history because 25 years from now when we look back on it, it will still hold up because the CGI enhanced the real footage not replaced it. Unlike so many other films that are filmed in front of a green screen that will fade away into obscurity.

Right. That was a lot, I know. All my friends and family are tired of me talking about the movie. I have been telling everyone I know (and some I don’t) about how great this movie is and I just had to get it out of my system. The first time I witnessed the glory that was “Mad Max: Fury Road” in theaters my jaw was on the floor. The first chase scene was by far the best chase scene I had ever seen, and that was by far the worst chase scene of the film. It starts at 100 and just goes off the rails from there. I understand claiming it is the best action movie ever is very bold. However, I stand by it completely. There hasn’t been an action film (at least that I have seen) that has an emotional story, great characters, amazing action sequences, fantastic cinematography, AND a killer soundtrack. Mad Max: Fury Road is the whole package. Me being only twenty years old I always wonder what it would have been like to go to a theater and see a movie that is now renowned as a classic like Star Wars, Blade Runner, or The Terminator.

Well, I believe I have a pretty good idea now.