Never before had I been half so surprised at an Academy Best Picture nomination. I hadn't seen this one yet, but I had seen Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which didn't seem to belong anywhere near elite cinematic discussion. It wasn't badly done per se, just...out there. Possibly the ugliest (not grossest, most violent, or most depraved, but big on all three) movie I ever watched from start to finish, without any obvious connection with reality to make up for that. I figured that when you've seen one Mad Max entry, you've seen them all. Nothing short of the Oscars could bring me back for more.
OK, I suppose I should give the series some credit for realism by sci-fi standards. None of the premises are impossible under modern science. It's just a near-future dystopia in which punks and a few innocents race across the desert in search of scarce resources -- originally gasoline above all, now water. There are the sorts of deviations from physics you expect from action flicks, of course, but the part I find hardest to believe is that the bulk of survivors would gravitate toward a severe lack of taste in fashion, vehicles, and basic mores.
Having lost his family, Max (Tom Hardy, suitably replacing Mel Gibson) has become a slightly unhinged antihero, evidently trying not to care about anyone but himself. This does not stop him from getting roped into conflicts and taking the less blatantly evil side time and again. In this case, the enemy is a water tycoon called Immortan Joe, and the people in need of a champion are his involuntary harem.
You've probably heard a little by now about Furiosa (Charlize Theron), the other main champion of Max's fourth outing. Some viewers see her as the real hero; that may be true in the sense of virtue -- she gains favor with Joe as a kind of lieutenant until she can escape with four concubines -- but I don't think she gets quite as much screen time. Nor do I think she equals Max in coolness; she does more driving while he does more fighting. Fortunately, she's not the only tough woman on screen, but you have to wait a while for the others to appear.
Relatively feministic? Probably, but not something I'd suggest to Mom. Like its predecessors, it's little more than an R-rated testosterone rush. Few shots last more than about three seconds, and every minute appeals to a gritty chic. There's even a rocker standing atop a moving truck and shooting flames willy-nilly from his guitar, for no other reason than to be awesome.
The other major character is Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who starts as a frail but ambitious servant of Joe with an oddly personal connection to Max. It soon becomes apparent that he will not be a straightforward antagonist the whole time. A seasoned cinephile can see the gist of his arc's ending a mile away.
If I hadn't already watched MM2, I couldn't promise I'd sit thru Fury Road. Despite little CGI, it is almost exactly what I expected of the franchise after a three-decade hiatus -- longer and more hideously magnified but basically the same. Well, except a little more hopeful in the end. As it is, I could avoid cringing at the nastiest parts and did my best to enjoy the rest, for an overall OK feeling. I suspect that the high IMDb rating stems largely from the people who'd hate it knowing enough already to avoid it.
Will it sweep the technical Oscars? Maybe, but it hasn't at other awards shows so far. Ultimately, the only reason I perceive to nominate Fury Road over, say, The Force Awakens or Age of Ultron is that it feels like a good stopping point. Best Pictures do tend not to invite sequels.
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