5.13.2015

Empir3 Talks: Mad Max

Is this how Mel Gibson really got his start?

  With Fury Road coming out this week and it apparently getting great reviews I figured I would venture back to the originals. Now I don't remember them well and apparently the third one is what I remember best, but the first one shocked me. None of what I would consider Mad Max was there.

   When I think Mad Max I think post apocalyptic and black leather with football pads for armor. That is not what the original was at all and how it all got to that boggles my mind. I can see how this was a cult classic but to become a mega franchise and launch Mel Gibson's career I just don't get. Maybe I need to view it more with the idea of when it came out in 79?

   What did work for me was the way it was shot for the most part and I thought it was actually getting good at the end. The way the car and bike scenes were shot had a raw natural feel to them that conveyed a lot of speed. And the movie's characters or lack there of were finally getting interesting by the time the credits rolled. I think that's one of the biggest issues I have with the movie there is just a general lack of substance and when it finally builds up it just ends. I would love to hear the opinions of people who think it's a classic, I think the perspective would be interesting.

     How does a movie with seemingly nothing that I remember the franchise for launch an actor's career and a huge Hollywood franchise? I guess it's a testament to the movie and it's fans even if I don't get it. I don't regret watching it and I'm going to continue on to The Road Warrior, hopefully that will bridge just what the hell happened for me. I think it's really interesting that you have this fairly grounded world if not a bit fucked up become this huge over the top post apocalyptic one. The law enforcement in the first movie seemed like a toned down Judge Dredd and it just gets crazier from there. I guess all my preconceived notions of the movies could be just that I won't know until I continue on with my movie voyage.

1 comment:

  1. I saw the Road Warrior countless times before seeing Mad Max, but once I had, I just took the original for more of an origin story. Of how he became "Mad". I mean, his overly animated partner got messed-the-f-up and his wife and kid...

    I saw this as a movie of a strong man breaking down, and I loved that it wasn't quick edits, flashy music, or inner monologue that told me so. It was his actions. Almost from a surveillance point of view, as I could only watch his icy stare as he flew down the endless highway and imagine what dark thoughts were swirling in his head and if we was battling with trying to be a cop or going just as savage as those who took everything from him,

    So, the Road Warrior looked like him in a world where both he and the planet died a bit and cared a lot less. The ramping up of the dystopic world I thought was great, had they held it there, instead of pushing it full throttle into the more cartoony Thunderdome. I felt in the third installment, we lost that feeling of vengeance from the first two where we want to see Max as the harbinger and deliverer of violent and final justice.

    For Fury Road, I'm hoping for a return to the Road Warrior. Where a Max with his focused glare tares through barbed spears and screaming flames at top speeds across an arid wasteland and I'm no longer subjected to little tribes of commercial flight refugees telling me to "listen and memba"

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