Better than most, not as good as expected

Rating: 5/10 (24 June 2015)

The first 30 minutes are a struggle. Sure, a lot is happening, but mostly I noticed that George Miller, action director extraordinaire, was cheating. Almost every action beat (fight or crash or whatever) was speeding up the film, which is the lazy way to make it look fast, exciting, whatever. Mostly, it made it look like a cheap, direct to DVD foreign action flick.
Tom Hardy, for a lot of the film just grunted. Throw that in with the jerky and very obviously sped up film and it was painful.
Finally, about 45 minutes in, the story became more interesting and compelling, but the homages seemed to cry out "creatively" tired. I'm referring of course to the Jawas on Motorbikes, which seems like bad fan fiction, rather than an original creation. Other images seemed lifted from "The Dark Crystal," and were strange retreads of Miller's own work.
The few moments of real excitement and adrenaline only made the rest of the films flaws more pronounced and sad.