MAD MAX: FURY(-OUS) ROAD

This is the summer of accidentally watching recently released popular movies. This summer I happen upon, through no fault of my own, the new Star Wars and the new Mad Max films.

I suppose I have no right to criticize the latest Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, because I stopped watching the movies after seeing most of the first three, the original trilogy.  However,  I will poke a knitting needle into the new movie's plot. Here it is:

Who the fuck are these damn people?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the dialogue is semi-stolen from the original.  I know this because I saw the first one, the original Star Wars, probably twenty times.  It's obvious who each character is supposed to "be" and/or who their parents are, but really.  Keeping that a secret until  the next sequel (which almost sounds like an oxymoron)?  What the hell.  This isn't a soap opera; it's a movie.  Spit it the frig out.  Don't leave huge plot holes "for next time."

At least The Force Awakens has a plot.  The other "blockbuster" I see has no plot.  As a matter of fact, it has no dialogue of substance, no backstory, and no post story.  The only thing it has is sand.  Lots and lots of fucking sand. Mad Max: Fury Road got all kinds of kudos from critics and reviewers, but I just do NOT get it.


As a sporting event, it's excellent.  It has car racing, nitro vehicles, motocross, mixed martial arts, pole vaulting, archery, shooting, track and field, and more.  As a movie with a story line and character development, it sucks ass.  The "plot" holes are huge: Why is there no water?  Who killed the water?  How do the old women live in the desert with no water?  Why are the characters all stereotypes? Even more disturbing, who stockpiles breast milk in bulk enough to fill tankers?  That's a little perverse.

Even the costumes are lame.  "That's MY jacket."  Why?  Because in one movie Max wore a leather police jacket?  At one point Furiosa wipes grease on half of her forehead and starts driving the truck.  The very next shot, her grease and eye make-up are perfect.  Hmmmm... did Max spring from the floorboards and apply it for her?  Why are the wives all wearing see-through white gauze?  Why are nipples given starring roles?  How does that make a feminist statement?  Newsflash: It frigging doesn't.  This is a wet dream movie, pure and simple, and it reeks of pornography.

How come Max has about twelve lines in the movie, and why, oh, why, does Tom Hardy grumble and grunt each and every line like he's trying desperately to take a dump?  What's the point of that?  This movie is NOT about Max.  I have no flaming idea if George Miller et al even remember the first two Mad Max movies for which they are responsible.  (The third one, Beyond Thunderdome, was a waste of time, space, and writing.)

Oh, don't even argue with me.  Sure, sure, I saw the music box mechanism.  Big deal.  Thanks for the bone.  You want to know the biggest faux pas of all?  Max's dream-sequence memories.  Who is this girl calling him daddy, or whatever the hell that was?  Honestly.  Max had a wife (Jessie) and a boy named Sprog who was barely a toddler when he was run down in the road.  There are/were no children calling him "Daddy," and no daughter.  Got it?  No daughter.  Just a blond baby boy named Sprog.  Pay attention.

The Road Warrior is one of the best movies I have ever seen, but bear in mind that I also think Napoleon Dynamite, Blazing Saddles, Midway, and Repo Man are fucking masterworks.  The blatant rip-off of visuals from the movie Road Warrior are, at first, invigorating, lending a feeling of, "Oh, this is going to be GREAT!"  But then it becomes obvious that there is no place for Max, mad or otherwise, in this movie.  This movie is about boobies, breeding, sex slaves, and wasting fuel (which, if memory serves me, is a limited commodity in this post-apocalyptic society) and should be called Mad Monster Trucks: Big Foot's Desert Adventure.

There is one bright spot in the movie: the massive drums that are beaten as bizarre calls to war.  There are four or six of them in the back of one of the giant vehicles, and I want one.  The drums, I mean.  I want someone drumming like that on the back of my Dodge to pre-warn other suckers that I'm heading in their general direction.  

The movie itself is not a complete waste of time if you're going to see it expecting and knowing nothing.  However, if you're a Mad Max aficionado,  if you have not done so already, SAVE YOUR BRAIN.  This movie has more gaping holes than this year's presidential candidates' campaign promises.