Amazing Action, Not About Max

Rating: 7/10 (19 July 2015)

It did well with critics but it's not without its detractors. I had read it was a class A action movie and on that basis alone I was excited to see it. I saw Mad Max in high school so I was aware of the character and the austere Australian cult vibe of the movie. This new version was only alike in costumes. The dialog was minimal but there were some heavy themes present. The evil leader gets his minions to blow themselves up by explaining some sort of after death paradise. Modern parallels anyone?
The movie is not from the perspective of Max this time. We see a lot from a group of women who get pregnant and supply their milk to the group for nourishment. I'm not entirely sure how helpful this was to the plot. It did, however, show by proxy that they had lost civilized conventions ... like cow's milk. The chases and shoot em up scenes are top notch. I wasn't bored once. The movie really is just one long car race and gang war. If you saw the trailer, you know about the flame thrower guitar. I wondered why that would be there but them recalled how in the revolutionary war the soldiers wee often led by flutes and drums. By the way, in addition to the wicked guitar flamethrower, there are some amazing drums on the cars. So often action movies get caught up in storytelling scenes. Max avoids that. It's just one long running action scene with pointless dialog from time to time and in between. Because it didn't focus on Max very much and because the story was a little weak it lost points. As an action movie, I think it will take its place in history as one of the best.