Stonk-boggeringly awful

Rating: 2/10 (16 January 2018)

Mad Max Fury Road is loud, obnoxious, shallow and tedious. I honestly cannot think of the last action film I saw that I found to be so boring and painful to watch. Jettisoning such superfluous elements like plot, characterization, pacing, structure or purpose, Fury Road is left as little more than a non-stop 2-hour car chase.
There's beauty in simplicity to be sure (like Duel, or The Road Warrior for that matter), but the action in this film lacks any sense of progression or pacing. There's practically no meaningful transition between full-blown action and dreary overwrought dialogue - the film is either screeching up to 11, or not at all. And while the stunts themselves are indeed impressive for their practical feats, they soon get lost is the film's incessant white noise - at the end, I couldn't recall a single set-piece from Fury Road, just the sensation of a pounding headache.
Not that the 'story' parts are much better - despite having a strong pair of leads from Hardy and Theron, the supporting cast ranges from passable to positively awful. Even said leads aren't given much to work with aside from the occasional grunt or maybe even a strained attempt at actual drama. But these ring hollow and feel unearned in the film's mindless muddle. There can be great power in a simple story, but Fury Road feels less like a big-budget B-movie than it does a standard Hollywood story with all the non-explosive beats cut out of it (more so than usual I mean).
The scenery is spectacular to be sure, but it's also drowned in overly saturated shades of orange (during daytime) and blue (day for night) that make the whole setting look strangely fake despite the emphasis on practical effects. This isn't helped by the obnoxious editing, which makes heavy use of sped-up footage to pace the action scenes. This technique really does baffle me - yes, it was present in the originals, but does this really justify using a crappy technique that makes such scenes feel artificial and irritating to watch just for the sake of homage or nostalgia?
I don't usually like using the phrase "I don't understand how people can like/dislike X" since it just gives the impression that you've stopped trying to engage in any meaningful discourse or in trying to understand different perspectives. However, the acclaim behind Mad Max Fury Road really baffles me - this film seems to execute the worst habits of modern Hollywood blockbusters in the worst possible way, and yet has received universal praise from almost every quarter. I usually have a positive lean with movies, including those often disliked by others (such as Prometheus or Jurassic Park 3), but there's practically nothing in Fury Road that resonated with me on any level. Unless you count the migraine I received once this furious journey finally spluttered to a halt.
So that's one star for the spectacular Namibian scenery, when you can see it, and another for Theron, who really does deserve better material than this. Fury Road seemed to satisfy the vast majority of audiences; I just wish I could be among them.