Hollywood critics be damned..all of them. I usually don’t bother with reviews and general perception of a movie before deciding to watch it. Mad Max was an exception. My instinct told me it isn’t my kind of movie and yet so warmly did the hollywood critic fraternity praise this film, I ended up watching it anyway.. Next time, am listening only to my instinct.
Set in a dystopian future, Mad Max may be all that previous die hard fans would’ve hoped for. For the uninitiated, this is a reboot of an already popular franchise, though its taken 30 years for them to make this reboot. From a pure action perspective, Mad Max is not only good – it significantly raises the bar. The realism of the action, without any bullet time and slow mo sequences is a credit to the quality of direction and cinematography. However, that can’t be all there is to a good movie.
All that talk of Mad Max being in a league of its own, one of the best movies of 2015, a movie that can teach other superhero movies a thing or two about storyline and depth is simply nonsense. I can only imagine this is homage of current die hard fans who understand this genre and kind of storyline and who’ve received much more than they expected. For us, unsuspecting newbies the movie does very little and while the action doesn’t stop one bit, one frequently looks at the watch and finds themselves yawning, wondering how much more of this they will have to endure.
I’d talk about the acting, if there was any acting to talk about. There are precious few dialogues. Most of the focus of the movie is on the action. It stars Charlize Thereon and Tom Hardy, but it could well have taken debutante actors for all the ‘acting’ it demands. If this were a video game, it’d make far more sense. Voice actors in character driven video games have more and better lines than those offered to these established actors in this movie. The background score is really good but ill-placed. An action sequence in the middle of the movie will have you believing this is the climax, if you went by the background score alone. The weird electric guitarist featured in the movie doesn't help matters either
There is virtually no plot or storyline. The only thing to appreciate is the action and visuals. Great wide angle shots and precious attention to detail make this dystopian setting believable and a grim reminder to the future we might all be headed to, in generations to come. There was potential for some depth and subtle messages or some dark humor at the very least. Instead you get one chase sequence after another, the movie is relentless with those. There’s gasoline, retro-fitted muscle cars, lots of explosions, the sound of metal hitting metal, a desert landscape and lots of sand. That’s all that’ll stay with you after Mad Max closes.
If Mad Max is a great film then so is the entire Transformers series, the Fast and Furious Series and the king of them all, Pacific Rim. So if these movies took your breath away then sure, go and experience the manic nature of Mad Max. For all others who look for some kind of substance in a good film – stay away from this one
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