[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by TJ Doc

Mad Max: Fury Road

I posted this review on another forum already, but it's worth repeating because it's a damn good film that you should all see so we get more like it.

Some spoilers, hence the spoiler tag.

SPOILER:

"So we've been waiting a while for this. I can first recall hearing about a possible Mad Max 4 around 2008/9 when pre-production was just starting to get serious again after its previous cancellation earlier in the decade. Being a fan of George Miller's apocalyptic film series and the self-proclaimed #1 Mel apologist, my expectations were high.

And after six years, Fury Road hasn't just exceeded my expectations - it's smashed through them with the full, head-on collision force of a 16 wheeler.

I mean, sure, I didn't get Mel and that's always a shame. But Tom Hardy owns the role, interesting accent and all. As Furiosa, Charlize Theron provides the narrative with both an emotional core AND a totally badass foil to Hardy's gruff road warrior. Let's stick these two in a Thunderdome and see what happens.

And then there's Immortan Joe - the post-apocalypse's very own Thulsa Doom. This is a villain whose mere appearance is on an iconic level that deserves to sit alongside the likes of Darth Vader and Michael Myers. That returning Toecutter actor Hugh Keays-Byrne plays Joe with such striking ferocity makes him all the more memorable.

Miller directs them all masterfully, and the man's sense of pacing is simply astonishing. I get the feeling this was the fastest two hours I've ever and will ever experience, and while I completely lost track of time, I'm pretty sure the film didn't give us or its characters a chance to breathe until what must have been 40 minutes of dick-stiffening action flew by.

During this time, the violence comes thick and fast with unfortunate people getting smashed, crushed, blown up, impaled and everything in between. But in keeping with series tradition, particularly graphic bloodletting is kept to a minimum, though this only makes Fury Road's gorier moments all the more shocking, culminating with Immortan Joe's holy-shit-I-can't-believe-they-just-did-that demise. Good stuff.

I'm finding the whole MRM feminist conspiracy debacle a little perplexing, and not just because it's making me wish physical harm on my fellow man. Firstly, Max and Furiosa are very much equals throughout their turbulent road trip, to the point where the film evolves into a grimdark buddy flick following a classic third act bonding session. Secondly, this saga is filled with strong female characters, going all the way back to Max's ice cream-toting wife in the 1979 original. Thirdly... there's more misogyny packed into Fury Road's runtime than there is in Shane Black's entire screenwriting career. It's one thing to lace a half-naked porn actress/hooker's drugs with drain cleaner before dropping her from a penthouse balcony - it's something entirely more ****ed up to throw a pregnant Rosie Huntington-Whiteley under the wheels of a monster truck!

Ever since those family friendly 90s megahits like Independence Day did their best to kill off the action genre, this type of adult oriented, old-school big budget event movie has become such a rarity. When was the last one? Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998? And that only happened because bloody Superman Lives fell through!

Well, here's a $150 million production that doesn't exist solely to set up a dozen sequels or panders to a barely teenaged audience, but instead wants to squirt your face with astounding feats of practical filmmaking, unapologetic acts of brutal violence, breathtaking visuals enhanced with cosmetic CGI, and characters who leap off the screen and punch you square in the taint.

And to think they said we didn't need another hero..."

... which for some reason isn't showing up in this post. Long story short... great movie!

I've fixed it for you - you had the first "]" bracket after all the text rather than before it.