Looks different but isn't

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2016)

In an age where Hollywood blockbusters look very similar, where a major US city gets destroyed in almost every film, I understand why Fury Road is a breath of fresh air. It looks unique. The art design and costumes are fantastic. It totally deserves the Oscars it won.
However, the story and characters merely serve as a vehicle for action sequences. That's cool if you just like action, but come on, lets not act like it's a masterpiece. It's an action packed thrill ride, but nothing more. The dialogue is clunky and even the action gets repetitive. There isn't much depth to any of the characters, except maybe Nux who has the most character development in the whole story.
In anticipation of this film I watched Mad Max: Road Warrior for the first time and I couldn't help but think about how much better it is. In terms of scale it is a much smaller film, but it is gritty and tense. The world is brutal and a can of dog food is the best meal a man can expect. In Fury Road people use water, gas, and bullets like they're infinite. The rules of the world don't make sense. It's inconsistent and it constantly breaks my immersion.
Tom Hardy is poorly cast and poorly written as Max. Say what you want about how crazy Gibson is, but he can convey more in one look than all of Hardy's grunts in FR combined.
Theron is good as Furiosa but her character is underdeveloped. She has no arc. She just is. She suffers from being too perfect. She has no flaws. Every bullet she fires is a headshot. It's boring.
Immortan Joe looks cool, but he's hardly as intimidating or interesting as The Humungus.
One of the biggest things that was praised about the film were the "practical effects" but that is all undermined by having Max survive a fatal CGI car crash in the sand-storm scene. He doesn't even get a cut. All tension goes out the window after that part.
Fury Road is loud, fast, and in your face but it's compensating for a lack of interesting story and characters. It is the cinematic equivalent of dangling a shiny object in front of a cat. Sometimes that's all a film needs to be, but lets not pretend it's the best film ever. The praise this film received almost makes me think the bar for good films has been lowered.