It's alright, you know..

Rating: 7/10 (15 July 2015)

I just grabbed a DVD of this in China...
I've been reading all these reviews and people are expressing themselves almost hysterically: "ooohh... it's the best film ever made" or "booo...it's the worst film EVER!!!" Ridiculous. It's not either. In my opinion it is OK.
Tom Hardy plays Max in a reasonable way. Remember the Gyro-captain? He said he's never seen a man beat a snake before. Don't forget, Max is Quick! The movie often showcases Max's quickness.
People bang on about the "the flaming guitar man" and how ridiculous that is...
Hold on a minute! There is a guy who controls the resources. His name is Immortan Joe. He is blatantly an aristocrat type bloke who created a society and a culture to perpetuate his ideas. He's a posh fella. Posh people have created and developed the society we live in today. From Central Banking to corporate/military social hegemony. Well, that's what they do and we are all born within their system.
Fact.
Immortan Joe is a representation of a posh fella who's realised, with his access to resources, he could create a new society. And so he did. But, he didn't consider the feelings (and therefore actions) of willful people like Furiosa. The flaming guitar man is a social motivation thing. He egged the warriors, under Immortan Joe's control, on. It makes sense to me.
Immortan Joe also created a religion that would motivate his warriors to sacrifice themselves to his cause. Hence the chrome mouth, Val Halla thing. He's a bright bloke. Look, how many people have died for "King and country" or "americuh and freedum" or "the emperor (Japan, China, England)"? The chrome mouth nonsense makes sense to me as does the guitar dude. If I created a society, I would use sonic, visual and religious motivators too. Blatantly.
The film is a bit deeper than people realise at first glance. However, that said, Miller is fantanstic at visualisation - just look at Mad Max 1!! It is a shame that "Hollywood" denied the essence of Miller's deep point - But IT IS STILL THERE.
Yeah alright, the deaths aren't as personal as they are in the original films. But of course not. This isn't an indie project like Mad Max was (you should watch Mad Max IN THE Australian VERSION!!!!!!) to see what I mean. Nevertheless, Tom Hardy does express Max well.
In this film however, Max is not a central role. There is very little "character development" or "story arc". But this is a film that shows our beloved Max dealing with the "here and now" of a future predicament he finds himself in, much to his chagrin.
Psychologically, this movie doesn't explore deep Human developmental characteristics in a "thespian" Al Pacino way, but it does strike a chord, especially with those poor girl's plight.
I found this film to be curious and fun. OK, it's not as good as Mad Max or The Road Warrior. In fact, I feel that this film would have been brilliant if Miller had secured Aussie entrepeneur and Aussie corporate investment, but such a film would have taken a long while to establish itself as a crazy, violent classic. What would you (really) do if you had to persuade people to cough up their wealth or if wealthy people said, "do this, do this, we'll throw our money at you" ?
Obviously, the second case happened - after some persuasion. This does make the movie appear a lot like an American mass consumption movie -but it still exists, and so many people spent some of their working lives to make the movie happen. I'm glad and grateful they did.
Mad Max, Fury Road is alright. It isn't great, though. Well, I like it, but the old movies are way cooler.