Underwhelming

Rating: 2/10 (17 May 2015)

I grew a huge fan of the original Mad Max trilogy. I've seen Road Warrior too many times to count. When I heard that a new Mad Max movie was being made, I was thrilled. That it took so many years to make only built on the anticipation of finally seeing this. The trailer was incredible. The reviews came out calling this a breathtaking, mind-blowing 2 hour thrill ride. I bought my ticket for the 7pm screening and sat down.
An hour into the movie, I checked my watch to see the time. That is never a good sign. As a pure stand alone action movie, it succeeds. The stunts were spectacular. Without giving away spoilers, the new ideas Miller introduces to a chase scene were great to see. I read that there was very little CGI used. I got that for the most part, even though there are some scenes where it looks wildly out of place. The cinematography is fantastic. The cars they built to eventually destroy are great to look at. Charlize Theron does well as essentially the lead character. But that's where the positives end for me.
For me what separated the Mad Max franchise from the rest of the flock is the story. It succeeds by combining great action with a simple yet good plot. Blowing up cars and chasing people only impresses to a point if you're not invested in the story and don't care about the characters. I didn't care whether any of them lived or died.
I get that Max is not supposed to say much but they went too far, really not giving him anything to work with. So in the end, the movie amounted to bad guys chasing good guys in 1 direction, then bad guys chasing good guys in the reverse direction. That's it.