Noah Talks Movies’s review published on Letterboxd:
My Favorite Films
Mad Max Ranked
100/100
I have seen this film five times but I never shared my thoughts on them, so I thought right now would be the time for me to do so. The Mad Max franchise has always intrigued me since my grandpa introduced it to me. I was pretty young when he did like maybe 7 or 8 years old. By time I actually got into film though I completely forgot what happened. Ever since I revisited the original trilogy I thought of it differently and wasn’t as huge of a fan of it. The first one was lackluster compared to what I could remember, the second one I didn’t think was as cool (I still love it though), and the third just being very mediocre and stupid. But then I decided to watch Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time, which I never had high expectations of, even after looking at the reviews. But boy oh boy when I watched this on February 27th of this year it had me flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to think, not even after five watches. It just sticks cool, one of a kind, high octane action pieces at you. So after I watched it for the first time I immediately fell in love with it, so much that I have seen it 5 times just this year already. But then Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga came out. It would become one of the most important prequels of all time. It explains the wasteland in depth and the backstory of Furiosa. Which is just what I needed to see for me to review Mad Max: Fury Road. Mad Max: Fury Road was actually really hard to make apparently. George Miller took 3 years to write Fury Road, immediately after he finished the script he started filming in 2001. The film was going to start the infamous Mel Gibson, but that’s when things went down hill. September 11th happened and it caused the economy to sky rocket, so the film’s filming got delayed until 2006. But when 2006 hit Mel Gibson said he was too old to play as Max so he didn’t accept the offer. That’s when George Miller thought all hope was lost and decided to make Happy Feet. But then you jump forward to 2009, George Miller teased Mad Max: Fury Road to be an anime. He ended up scraping it and Fury Road would end up being live action. The film started filming in late of 2010 and Miller decided on casting Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. But by time it started filming a huge rainstorm approached, lasting 2 weeks, and then by time the cast came the desert was blooming flowers. It wasn’t until 2012 when they decided to start filming. Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most quintessential action films to date. If it wasn’t for it who knows what type of action films we would be getting. The whole film is action packed. It’s just over 2 hours long and I would say about an hour and a half of it is action. It’s just one long high octane chase scene. It also has such an amazing score from Tom Holkenborg also known as Junkie XL. I would’ve thought that I would loved the score as much as I did. It gets your adrenaline pumping and tells you you’re in for a wild ride. It’s easily a top five score for me. Mad Max: Fury Road has some of the best visuals to ever be in film. It has such an aesthetic and is very vibrant. There’s actually a version of this film out there called Mad Max: Fury Road - Black and Chrome. It’s essentially just a black and white version of the film, which in my eyes could be a bad or a good thing. The film is just so visually stunning that it might ruin it. I will still check it out if I can find it somewhere. But regardless thank you John Seale for and the editing team for the visuals you crafted. Even though I have gave this film a perfect 100/100 there still is problems with it. The story doesn’t feel complete but that could be because how long filming took so the production team had to rush, or it could be for the lack of dialogue. George Miller believes that dialogue slows a film down and it’s unnecessary, which probably is the reason for the lack of dialogue. Even with the lack of the dialogue Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy give pretty amazing performances just by their facial expressions. But either way I look at the story not being complete as a good thing, with it not being complete you just get thrown into the film not knowing what’s going on, which only makes the film more intriguing. So all in all Mad Max: Fury Road is definitely flawed but because of its mystery, technical aspects, and constant action it makes the film perfect.
Let me know if you guys would like to see me make reviews longer like this!
