On the surface somewhat dull action flick, which however has a deeper existential level

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2015)

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this one. On the surface level this film is quite dull. One car chase to a promised haven which has ceased to exist, second chase back, and that's it. The promise of the Green Place stimulates imagination, so it is a big disappointment as actually no mythical green land is found. The terrain is also very monotonic. The battles are too long, dull and repetitive. Very much attention is paid to detail of the objects, though. Technically the film is splendid. Rated on this level I would give it a 5 out of 10.
However, the film also spoke to me on a deeper level. The post-apocalyptic scenario is used to create a world in which people are exploited like livestock, and the whole culture has has decayed to accommodate this abuse. In the beginning of the film Nux is just one warboy. He follows blindly the dictates of his leader, sugarcoated by promises of glory for those who die valiantly in battle, that have allusions to the Pagan Norse religion. In the course of the film Nux is forced to make personal choices, to choose who he is and wishes to be, so that his life gains independent value.
The same topic is also explored through the five wives of the gang leader Immortan Joe, who in the course of their escape are trans-morphed from objects to subjects. Their original childish/girlish, irresponsible and spoiled behavior contains in my opinion heavy critique towards modern women's culture. One does not need to be a feminist to see this side of the story - rather, the film shows that the golden cage is not built just by men of power, but requires from women a decision to pursue the path of a trophy object. The wives are granted a personal liberty, but use it to make different decisions, some wishing to flee the rough real world back to their captors. Also for Imperator Furiosa the Fury road is a road to personal liberty, though she takes more an active role.
On this level, therefore, the film can be considered an existential movie, which explores the relationship between personal choices and cultural pressure: a story of the birth of an individual personality, when one is liberated from the pressure created by oppressive cultural forces. The journey of the film can therefore be seen as a kind of allegory, in which fleeing to the emptiness of the desert represents the flight from those cultural forces. It even carries a hint of a religious journey towards a Promised Land, though in the bleak atheist(?) existential view of the film the Promised Land no longer exits, so that each person is given the task to forge his or her own destiny. On this existential and allegorical level I am willing to give the film an 8 out of 10. When I consider the both scales together, emphasizing the existential merits the film does in my opinion deserve a total 7 out of 10.