An unpleasant viewing experience

Rating: 4/10 (20 May 2015)

The not-too-revealing-synopsis: This is an addition to the Mad Max series that is set in a desert world where order and scientific progress have ceased. Mankind, still dependent upon fuel to power engines built in the productive times past, scavenges and fights for whatever gasoline can be found. Organized bands of highway robbers are the closest approximation to society and those still with traces of humanity and civility can only survive on the periphery of savagery.
The not-too-revealing-review: It has a good story. There are great action scenes. The created world itself is thoughtful and detailed, full of wonder and surprise. It is full of memorable characters, and Charlize Theron was perfect. How, then, did it go so terribly wrong?.... Imagine a talented painter who spends months on a piece. He creatively employs the appropriate techniques: lighting, texture, perspective, etc. Then the artists hands a random stranger a Sharpie and asks them to overlay the painting with a stick figure mural which offers the stranger's interpretation of the artist's work. In the end result, one can still glimpse the beauty of what is underneath, but the final product is irreparably marred. This was Mad Max: Fury Road. George Miller had created a fantastic world. And then, for reasons I cannot fathom, decided to ask Tom Hardy to reprise his role as Forrest Bondurant from the movie Lawless. Hardy is a great actor with versatility, and you ask him to do this? Why would you so extensively (or at all for that matter) rely on double-film speed to make the action scenes seem faster? That wasn't actually that cool in the 1970s, and it is just bizarre today. And why would you edit the scenes so that they were choppy and seeming to purposefully stifle continuity and development. It was almost as if the director wanted to regress to the graphic novel format. Somewhere in the vaults of the studio there lies the unedited footage for this movie. If that could be put together in a less choppy, slower pace film that more reflected mainstream films today, this could have been a truly enjoyable movie.
This was truly an unpleasant viewing experience. For those wanting a comparison, think Crank (2006) merged with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). I suppose that if you liked Crank and/or Sin City, however, this might be just the thing you are looking for.