6 Oscars, huh?

Rating: 4/10 (1 March 2016)

Well, I just had to see this one. After seeing it snag 6 Technical Oscars (costume and production design, make-up, editing, sound, sound mixing), I figured, "Wow, this must be really good." It did beat out Star Wars: The Force Awakens in a couple of those categories after all. So of course my first step was to IMDb it and see what the general consensus was, and I was never more... confused. The first thing I saw was a 90 Metacritic score, and the second was a B-line of 1 star ratings coupled with brutal reviews from users. Hmm... Alright. Now I never saw the original Mad Max films (shame on me, I know). Going into this movie completely blind, I just didn't get it. Yeah, lots of action right from the get go, but it took forever to even know what was going on. Post-apocalyptic world. Guy gets visions of a haunted past, gets kidnapped, OK, old guy villain with a messed up face, thousands of followers, obsessed with breeding, tyrannical, got it. That's the first 5 minutes, then characters in cars (more like dune buggies and a tank) leave, go rogue, get chased by the bad guys just mentioned, meet up with the main character through a series of events and dozens of people commence to die in the next hour and 45 minutes of the film during what seems to be just an endless car chase that winds up ending in the exact same place it started. Wait, I get it, the people that like this movie also like NASCAR. That had to be it since I fell asleep about the same amount of times during this movie as I do during a NASCAR race on the rare occasion it's actually on my TV. However, anything being discussed during all of this action between characters was just meaningless as by this point after a good amount of intense car-chasing action and explosions were just thrown in my face, I just didn't care about any of these characters. Was the action pretty sweet to watch? Actually, yes. Everything looked cool, but that's not enough. I'd say 2 maybe 3 of those 6 Oscars were actually deserved. 4/10 for good action and looking cool, "meh" acting, but not much else earning points. Also big points taken away for being more recognized by the Academy than Star Wars this year.