The Desolation of Cinema Without Substance

Rating: 1/10 (21 May 2015)

This film has received very positive receptions from critics. This I find quite baffling. Why so? Because this film follows basically the same approach that Michael Bay's films do! It minimizes dialogue, plot, characterization, and maximizes action, special effects, etc., in order to be able to appeal to a broader international audience (primarily in Asia). Unfortunately for this film, unlike the Transformers, who will have some cultural clout in Asian markets, I do not expect this approach will work as well as they hoped it would.
In addition to stripping this film down to the bare minimum of dialogue, the bare minimum of plot, almost no lines, an essentially supporting role for Mad Max (who can't even get his accent right or consistent, or deliver any lines in anything like a sensible way), this film tries to resurrect its ability to recoup its budget by appealing to the political left and its intolerance of anyone saying anything negative about whatever its sacred cow might be at the moment.
Unfortunately, this film isn't actually political. If this film were, in fact, a deep political statement about feminism, communism, racism, the environment, or really, about any kind of left wing political perspective whatsoever in any kind of thought through coherent way, it would be an infinitely superior film. But it isn't.
It depicts men as brutal, beastly, vicious and often unnecessary or hindrances: but this is not a political statement. There are some shocking visuals (the milk scenes, the attempted baby extraction, some scenes of women being aggressive, violent, or being subjects of the same), but this does not amount to a feminist film.
However, by marketing this film AS a feminist film, it becomes the duty of any good left wing hack on the internet to defend it. Because since the film depicts or claims to depict or is claimed to depict left wing values, to criticize it in any way would be to concede the baselessness of their views or to lose face or something. Honestly I have no way why anyone gets as vehement about politics as these people do. This includes the reverse type: Conservative lunatics.
Charlize Theron is the star of this film, and had she been given more to work with, she could have done great things with it. Unfortunately, the script, which I have heard was depicted in a series of pictures and only later transferred from these images to a written form, has nothing for anyone, even someone as talented as Theron, to work with.
Because special effects are essentially a given with a budget the size Miller was working with, and further, these special effects were not put to any use to convey a story, principle, politics, or really well, anything, it follows that I have no regard for them. Art in order to be art must have a message. Do not be fooled. This film has none. The emperor has no clothes.
Because of this total poverty of story, you might even argue that this film is covertly a conservative film. It strips down the art of filmmaking to simply reproducible factors (special effects) targeted at certain markets (the American left, international markets for limited or no English) and it uses the media as a tool of propaganda to disguise its only real aim, point, purpose, or raison d'être: to make money. To further the global capitalist agenda.
Marketed for Liberals, made for the benefit of Neocons, Mad Max (now with 95% less Max!): Fury Road! (Now with 95% more road, less story, less fattening! Buy now!)