Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

As I said to The Boy this very day, "My lack of devotion to franchises has saved me a lot of grief over the years." I never cared about Wars or Treks or Runners or Dunes or superheroes. (I could've been roped into a DC Cinematic Universe, but whatever Zach Snyder is putting down is not interesting to me and is so far removed from the characters I grew up with, it acts as anti-nostalgia.) Now, what about Mad Max: Was I fan?

I'm gonna say no, not in the current sense of the word. I might have used the word 40 years ago, were I not nearly 29, but here's what it would mean: "If a new Mad Max movie comes out, I'll go see it. If one is on TV at the moment, I might watch it." (The latter statement hasn't been relevant since I cut the cord over a decade ago.)

I love movies, but my interest in anything serial is likely to wane quickly. One bad movie is enough to end it. It's why I don't watch TV. (My children are savages in this regard. Ten minutes into The Hobbit and they were whispering, "We're not seeing the sequels.") There's just not ever, in my opinion, a way to sustain the talent, the budgets and the very mechanics of the universe itself. (The Toy Story series is a miracle in this regard, and I stopped watching those with #3.)

So, I don't really care about The Mad Max Universe, and I went into Furiosa thinking, "Well, George Miller is a good director and I've liked all the movies so far, so let's see this one." The kids, who have only seen Fury Road were reluctant. The Flower, who has more important things on her mind these days, opted out completely. And I had to encourage the Boy mightily.

The Verdict? Among the five movies, I would rank it at the bottom, tied with the original Mad Max, even though it's about as far from that movie as you could get.

Don't try to loom, honey. You're a fine actress but you just can't loom.

Unfortunately, the first thing we have to look at is the politics of things. I loathe this, but it's impossible for me to evaluate the movie without context. (This is not the first time for me: I will often just skip a movie if the buzz is too hot, and it needn't be for political reasons, either.) Miller's not a hack and Furiosa is no "girl boss". That said, the opening sequence with the women in The Green Place, when Furiosa is kidnapped, goes too far.

We see Furiosa's mother rescue her, and she's tough and resourceful, as is Furiosa (who is, like, nine years old). I liked this, I liked this, I liked this, and then Furiosa's mother is set on fire and she doesn't even react. I get what Miller was going for here: She waits until she's out of danger, then she jumps off the motorcycle and puts out the fire, but it just went a wee bit beyond plausibility. Was it some kind of messaging about tough women? I don't know, but we both felt it was too much, too superhuman.

Another thing that was probably not messaging, but could sort of come across that way, is the casting of Anya Taylor-Joy. Make no mistake the actress is up for the part and fully capable of acting. But her slight build made the final scenes where she confronts her kidnapper and arch-nemesis (played by Chris Hemsworth) rather less impactful, in multiple senses of the world.

And as long as we're talking negative things, one of the great things about the previous film was its skillful integration of CGI into predominately practical set pieces. The initial scenes of this film felt so fake, they pulled me right out. And a later scene taking place in a construction area were so preposterous as to do the same thing.

The Aussie version of "Life of Brian" just dropped.

Why does audacity work so well for Fury Road and not for Furiosa? Beats me. There's a line (we all draw in different places), and this stepped outside the that line. Look at it like Indy 1 versus Indy 2: I hated Indy 1, because I had the line drawn in one place, and then Indy straps himself to a submarine. Indy 2, I realized "okay, this is supposed to be dumb" so the raft didn't really bother me, and to this day I still don't get why people prefer one movie over the other.

Fury Road works hard to win us over, I think, whereas Furiosa feels like it's taking that for granted a little.

Now, Furiosa works well in a lot of places. It is very much "Thunderdome" to Fury Road's "Road Warrior". (The Boy just watched MM:BT and informs me it's cheesy and tonally weird. So.) It's world-buildy and saga-esque. Actually, one other negative is that it's rather too epic, as we see young Furiosa grow from Alyla Brown to Anya Taylor-Joy, and this is a revenge story that lacks the focus of, say, the original Mad Max.

The overarching world event involves Dr. Dementus (Hemsworth), a warlord whose goal is to take over the post-apocalyptic world of The Gas Town, The Bullet Farm and The Citadel. He's not much of a warlord, but he's cunning and ruthless enough to be able to take over Gas Town with a few men. He runs it into the ground because, hey, warlord, not governor. His solution is to capture The Bullet Farm, and to mismanage that until the only thing left for him is to capture The Citadel. We liked this a lot: Dementus feels like a real-world current day politician who knows how to do one thing (get elected or, in this case, capture a city).

His destiny meets its fate, as it were, when a couple of lower-than-lowlifes capture Furiosa, and he takes her on as a surrogate daughter. Then he sells her to Immortan Joe in the Citadel. She escapes her fate as a breeder to join a work crew in The Citadel. This part, the main plot, while having many good aspects, is a little weak.

I get that you're tough, but he looks like he could literally swallow you head first.

The Boy and I agreed that the movie didn't really engage us very well. We found ourselves talking about all the cool little details, the backstory, the world, and really enjoying that aspect of it. But we always ended up tripping over things we didn't like, and those things were more important to the story.

Like, it's very cool that young Furiosa was so resourceful, but she ended up feeling not human. The idea behind the construction-site action scene was cool, but the CGI made it a little silly. Furiosa has a Mad-Max-like love interest, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burk, Only God Forgives), which is where we first get to see some humanity, but he dies really fast.

The whole revenge plot, for that matter, is more interesting than engaging. That is, the first movie (which is just Australian Death Wish, remember) shows the crime and Max's vengeance all compressed within a pretty short length of elapsed time. If there are questions about how this changes Max, or what becomes of him afterwards, they are not significant in terms of screen time. Well, by the fifth movie, we have a pretty good denouement where Furiosa confronts Dementus, who has his own tragic backstory (unless he's lying) which does not buy him any mercy.

So, there's an interesting statement about revenge here, but if we examine it, we then have to examine why we watched a 150m movie where the protagonist spends her whole life in pursuit of revenge. In a savage, post-apocalyptic world, how do we even begin to judge such a thing? Are we having fun or are we just blowing 1/4 billion dollars of other people's money?

Miller probably won't make another Max movie. If he did, we'd still go see it. But I don't care (or much trust) what the ratings' sites said. A whole lot of the Fury Road magic is missing, and we are not given replacements.

Oh, this guy with Furiosa seems interes—oh, he dead.

RECENTLY WATCHED

La Chimera: If I told you that it was really obvious a woman directed this, would that be sexist? This flick, about genuine archaeological raiders (Italian lowlifes pillaging ancient sites) is not bad, but it is slow and ennui-ridden. Smothered in awards.

Boy Kills World: This is the one with H. John Benjamin serving as the internal voice of a young man trains his whole life to get revenge on an evil queen who murdered his family. Our bar was low going in, but the movie cleared it handily with exuberant over-the-top action-gore. Goofy fun.

The Fall Guy: And speaking of goofy fun, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blount provide the charm that keeps this silly stunt-fest afloat. Enjoyable enough with some amusing meta-humor. But I ask myself "Would I spend $150M on this?" and the answer is "No, I would not."

The Roundup 4: Punishment: We call these Ma-Dong Seok movies "Police Brutality: The Movie" because they're made with that old-school value that the cops are the good guys, they know who the bad guys are, and they're only hamstrung by civil rights laws. This one goes considerably lighter than the last, and as a result is way more fun. Much punching ensues.

Following: A peeping real estate agent finds himself in the soup when the influencer he's snooping on is violently murdered. Now, he's a Korean peeper, which means he's not spying on people having sex—there is no sex or nudity in this movie—but he follows them around, gets into their apartments and looks through their things, and steals something meaningless for his trophy room. A pretty good thriller which actually pretty poses the question "What the hell is social media really about?"

Run Lola Run: Franka Potente runs through the streets of Berlin, turning back time in this now classic indie/experimental film. Enough of the tropes here were successful that it doesn't really seem experimental any more. And the characters, while lowlifes, have more depth than is generally found in a Hollywood Oscar drama.

In A Violent Nature: Ever wonder how Jason Voorhees feels? No, because you're selfish. Cute, but drawn out, film which explores the teen-camper-slasher genre from the perspective of the beleaguered slasher. Probably too low-key if you're not steeped in the genre.

Robot Dreams: Whimsical, charming "silent" film (no dialogue) about a lonely dog in New York City (ca 1985) who buys himself a robot pal only to "lose" him when he rusts at the beach. Nominated for best animated feature Oscar.

X: The Boy and I caught the re-release of this film, the first in Ti West's trilogy (X, Pearl, MaXXXine) which was put back in theaters as advertising for the upcoming final entry. Ti West has a style: His movies tend to develop character and plot, only to destroy all that in a flurry of horror and violence. This entry, about a crew of Southerners determined to make their mark in the burgeoning video porn industry, has some of the best developed characters I've seen in recent movies. The over-confident producer, the cameraman who defends his "art" to his reluctant girlfriend—only to convince her all too well—and the hyper-creepy Pearl and Howard, old folks trapped in a '20s farmhouse. Seldom do we see a single horror movie with a real theme, much less a trilogy. (The theme here is vanity, and it's enhanced by Mia Goth being both the porn star and the old lady.)

The Lovers: Speaking of ennui, Louis Malle's early film about a bored housewife was quite controversial back in the day. But sort of like Belle De Jure, in these latter days when the sex is relatively tame, does the movie have much else going for it? It's fine, but rather trivial.

Treasure: The Barbarienne is a Stephen Fry fan so we went to see this Holocaust-themed movie (sub-genres, "children of survivors", "Poland"). Lena Dunham is his fat, dull-witted daughter—so dull-witted she doesn't get why he might not want to do a tour of Poland in trains—determined to discover where her parents came from, and wrapped up in self-absorption because her parents chose not to talk a lot about their time in Auscwhitz. She pulls it off, not being completely obnoxious all the time and showing growth. Fry is terrific of course, but I'm always left wondering why the people who were in the camps seem like way better people than their children (and grandchildren!) who weren't!

Thelma: Delightful romp with 93-year-old June Squibb playing 93-year-old Thelma, who loses ten grand to telephone scams and goes on a quest to get the money back! Final role of the great Richard Roundtree. Skillfully treads the line between "fun" and "farce", mapping a lot of senior citizen tropes to action movies—especially the Mission Impossible movie series.

A Hard Day's Night: Comedies don't typically hold up well, but this 60-year-old debut of the Beatles mostly does. They Fab Four come off as kind of mean jerks, which is a combination of going for a Marx Brothers feel and the Beatles actually being mean jerks. Music's okay, too, but the movie leans too heavily on it.

Me, nearly 29, sleeping sound in the fact that that I'll never turn into me, nearly 59.

posted by Open Blogger at 07:12 PM

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