{"id":2418,"date":"2015-05-26T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T19:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2015-05-26T12:13:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T19:13:00","slug":"mad-max-fury-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/2015\/05\/26\/mad-max-fury-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Max: Fury Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FuryRoad\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Directed by: George Miller
\nStarring: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byron, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, Zoe Kravitz
\nRated: R for intense sequences of violence throughout, and for disturbing images<\/p>\n

George Miller returns to his early work by bringing us a new Mad Max movie: \u201cMad Max: Fury Road.\u201d It\u2019s a loose sequel to the three films he made between 1979 and 1985 (he\u2019s since helmed several children\u2019s movies), now with Tom Hardy in the titular role instead of Mel Gibson. In many ways, \u201cFury Road\u201d is what we expect from a Mad Max movie: wild and startling stunts and vehicles, with strangely-costumed characters battling in a huge, desert wasteland.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something of a bait-and-switch, though: the previews lead us to expect yet another testosterone-addled, scantily-clad-women-featuring, post-apocalyptic action movie, but that isn\u2019t what we get. It\u2019s definitely a post-apocalyptic action movie, and some of the women are scantily clad, but it\u2019s far from testosterone-addled and is thoroughly subversive. This is a movie where the major protagonists are women, working together to escape an ugly, dangerous world for an idyllic one.<\/p>\n

At their helm is Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), one of several captains in the fleet of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byron). In the desert wasteland, Joe has power because he has water, pumped up from deep below the earth. Furiosa has been planning an escape for a long time, and when she goes, she takes Joe\u2019s harem of breeding wives with her. Max joins the group almost by accident \u2013 he escapes the clutches of Joe\u2019s War Boys and winds up throwing in with the women, at first out of expediency, then because he understands their fight. The enormous army Joe sends after them turns the film into a series of car chases. Of course, because this is a Mad Max movie, the cars are bizarre, cobbled-together monnstrosities with spikes, and the weapons include everything from explosive spears to articulated buzzsaws. <\/p>\n

One thing that makes the spectacle even more impressive is knowing Miller insists on practical effects wherever possible, so all of those cars really exist \u2013 including the huge rig covered in speakers and featuring a bungee-jumping musician whose guitar is also a flame thrower. No, seriously.<\/p>\n

Where the film becomes subversive is in the things it lacks. Furiosa\u2019s left arm was amputated below the elbow at some point \u2013 nobody even asks why. We don\u2019t get backstories for any of the characters, really, and the film is low on dialog in general. It also is free of the sexist women-as-d\u00e9cor we\u2019ve come to expect from big action films \u2013 when Max finds the wives washing off in fresh water, it\u2019s not their bodies he stares at, it\u2019s the clean water they have, splashing luxuriantly on the ground in slow-mo close-up. There\u2019s no discussion about whether the wives can help or not when the fighting starts, because there\u2019s no time. It\u2019s fight or die, and everybody pitches in because they all want to survive. <\/p>\n

The film does have a whole lot of violence \u2013 it certainly earns its R rating \u2013 but most of the truly distressing material is either off-screen or implied. The War Boys are referred to as having a \u201chalf life,\u201d and they give affectionate names to the cancerous tumors they develop. Joe\u2019s wives aren\u2019t his willingly, and when we first really see them, they\u2019re cutting off chains and chastity belts. The people we see are all filthy, desperate survivors in one way or another. We never hear what, exactly, happened to the world \u2013 but we do see an endless salt flat that is strongly implied to once have been the ocean.<\/p>\n

If violence is not your thing, \u201cMad Max: Fury Road\u201d is probably also not your thing. Likewise, if you want a film with plenty of dialog to hand-hold you through its plot, it is not for you. If, however, you want to see actual strong, interesting characters who happen to be female, do not miss it. If you want a movie where a man and a woman work together to fight for what\u2019s right without so much as a hint of mushiness or sexual tension, do not miss it. If the casual sexism of most Hollywood flicks upsets you, this is a film you have to see. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Directed by: George Miller Starring: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byron, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, Zoe Kravitz Rated: R for intense sequences of violence throughout, and for disturbing images George Miller returns to his early work by bringing us a new Mad Max movie: \u201cMad Max: Fury Road.\u201d It\u2019s a loose sequel to the three films he made between 1979 and 1985 (he\u2019s since helmed several children\u2019s movies), now with Tom Hardy in the titular role instead of Mel Gibson. In many ways, \u201cFury Road\u201d is what we expect from a Mad Max movie: wild and startling stunts and vehicles, with strangely-costumed characters battling in a huge, desert wasteland. It\u2019s something of a bait-and-switch, though: the previews lead us to expect yet another testosterone-addled, scantily-clad-women-featuring, post-apocalyptic action movie, but that isn\u2019t what we get. It\u2019s definitely a post-apocalyptic action movie, and some of the women are scantily clad, but<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,92],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-actionfestorama-2","tag-rated-r"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/FuryRoad.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-D0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions\/2420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}