by Rachel Wicks
To start off, I would like to mention the fact that Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth installment of a previously existing trilogy spanning from 1979 to 1985 and that I have not seen the older three films, nor do I intend to. Sure, I browsed the IMDB pages for them for a few minutes but ultimately decided that the best review of Fury Road would come from a nonbiased source who wouldn’t actively compare the film to its older counterparts and who could dive headfirst into a new world with untainted expectations.
This proved to be an excellent idea.
Mad Max: Fury Road is completely understandable and enjoyable as a stand-alone film, and I highly suggest that if action movies are your raison d’être, you should see it immediately. Personally, I don’t actively seek out action movies, but Fury Road had incredible elements of world building, ensemble writing, and women’s representation that kept the entire two-hour experience to be engaging and well worth the price of the ticket.
From looking at the trailers, the film first and foremost seems like a movie about cars, blowing thing up, general bad-assery, and more cars. The trailers aren’t lying to you; cars play a huge part in this movie, but as a woman speaking who has absolutely zero interest in horsepower and engines and whatnot, this doesn’t detract from the film at all. The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic Australian desert where water is scarce, people scavenge for any means of survival, and cars are essentially the dominant aspect of the culture that grew out of this wasteland. Cars even wormed their way into these people’s religion, since there are shots of “war boys” rejoicing their steering wheels, spraying their mouths with chrome paint, and believing that they are all meant to die in a fiery blaze of glory via a car crash on the Fury Road. They even believe in an afterlife in Valhalla, which today means the heaven of Norse mythology, but to the people of Fury Road, it’s where they “ride eternal, shiny, and chrome”. Watching the film, it was fascinating to piece together the beliefs and notions of this wild, future society, so the focus on cars never seemed boring or ostracizing to a female audience. Instead, it was simply a part of how this world was, and seeing this new society being introduced bit by bit in a well-paced and methodical way was honestly fun to witness.
However, the world of Mad Max would be nothing were it not for its characters. Anyone reasonable human being can surmise that the main character is probably a guy named Max, which is true, but I would argue that the storyline essentially belonged to a woman named Imperator Furiosa. While Max is a man who is captured in the beginning of the film by the war boys, and used solely as a “blood bag” because he is a universal donor, Furiosa is in a high position of power in this society. She drives one of the most respected types of cars, a war rig, and she is the one in charge of driving out to collect gasoline and bullets for the man in charge of this world: Immortan Joe. However, the main story kicks in when Furiosa drives off one day with Immortan Joe’s five wives, who were essentially used solely for the purpose of having children and were kept locked away in a vault that only Joe entered. Thankfully, no scenes of Joe abusing the wives were ever shown, but it can be inferred what horrors these women were running from.
However, unlike most action movies, these women weren’t flat, two-dimensional characters. They also weren’t all the stereotypical “strong female character” that a lot of action movies use, since often times those characters are portrayed as strong simply because they have adopted typically masculine traits. In Fury Road, there was a healthy variety of strong women, weak women, women in love, women with no time for love, women who had hope, women who believed hope was pointless, and so much more. There is nothing wrong with a female character with masculine qualities, but when that’s the only type of woman represented, that’s when problems arise. Mad Max: Fury Road let’s its audience get to know the subtleties of each female character, let’s their human qualities shine through, hence why it avoids falling into the “badass girl trope” trap. Furiosa, each of the wives, and women they meet along the way are all unique characters, equally as enthralling and engaging as Max and the other men in this story.
Basically, if you like action, see this movie. If you like seeing the world created by human imagination, see this film. If you like seeing lots of women on screen that aren’t being objectified or exploited, see Mad Max: Fury Road. And if that doesn’t sell you, see this movie for that one character whose sole purpose is to play sweet riffs on a flame-throwing guitar while being strapped to a wall of portable speakers via bungee chords. Honestly, my nine-dollar ticket was worth it just to get a laugh out of that, and I went to see this movie twice.
Mad Max: Fury Road is completely understandable and enjoyable as a stand-alone film, and I highly suggest that if action movies are your raison d’être, you should see it immediately. Personally, I don’t actively seek out action movies, but Fury Road had incredible elements of world building, ensemble writing, and women’s representation that kept the entire two-hour experience to be engaging and well worth the price of the ticket.
From looking at the trailers, the film first and foremost seems like a movie about cars, blowing thing up, general bad-assery, and more cars. The trailers aren’t lying to you; cars play a huge part in this movie, but as a woman speaking who has absolutely zero interest in horsepower and engines and whatnot, this doesn’t detract from the film at all. The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic Australian desert where water is scarce, people scavenge for any means of survival, and cars are essentially the dominant aspect of the culture that grew out of this wasteland. Cars even wormed their way into these people’s religion, since there are shots of “war boys” rejoicing their steering wheels, spraying their mouths with chrome paint, and believing that they are all meant to die in a fiery blaze of glory via a car crash on the Fury Road. They even believe in an afterlife in Valhalla, which today means the heaven of Norse mythology, but to the people of Fury Road, it’s where they “ride eternal, shiny, and chrome”. Watching the film, it was fascinating to piece together the beliefs and notions of this wild, future society, so the focus on cars never seemed boring or ostracizing to a female audience. Instead, it was simply a part of how this world was, and seeing this new society being introduced bit by bit in a well-paced and methodical way was honestly fun to witness.
However, the world of Mad Max would be nothing were it not for its characters. Anyone reasonable human being can surmise that the main character is probably a guy named Max, which is true, but I would argue that the storyline essentially belonged to a woman named Imperator Furiosa. While Max is a man who is captured in the beginning of the film by the war boys, and used solely as a “blood bag” because he is a universal donor, Furiosa is in a high position of power in this society. She drives one of the most respected types of cars, a war rig, and she is the one in charge of driving out to collect gasoline and bullets for the man in charge of this world: Immortan Joe. However, the main story kicks in when Furiosa drives off one day with Immortan Joe’s five wives, who were essentially used solely for the purpose of having children and were kept locked away in a vault that only Joe entered. Thankfully, no scenes of Joe abusing the wives were ever shown, but it can be inferred what horrors these women were running from.
However, unlike most action movies, these women weren’t flat, two-dimensional characters. They also weren’t all the stereotypical “strong female character” that a lot of action movies use, since often times those characters are portrayed as strong simply because they have adopted typically masculine traits. In Fury Road, there was a healthy variety of strong women, weak women, women in love, women with no time for love, women who had hope, women who believed hope was pointless, and so much more. There is nothing wrong with a female character with masculine qualities, but when that’s the only type of woman represented, that’s when problems arise. Mad Max: Fury Road let’s its audience get to know the subtleties of each female character, let’s their human qualities shine through, hence why it avoids falling into the “badass girl trope” trap. Furiosa, each of the wives, and women they meet along the way are all unique characters, equally as enthralling and engaging as Max and the other men in this story.
Basically, if you like action, see this movie. If you like seeing the world created by human imagination, see this film. If you like seeing lots of women on screen that aren’t being objectified or exploited, see Mad Max: Fury Road. And if that doesn’t sell you, see this movie for that one character whose sole purpose is to play sweet riffs on a flame-throwing guitar while being strapped to a wall of portable speakers via bungee chords. Honestly, my nine-dollar ticket was worth it just to get a laugh out of that, and I went to see this movie twice.
No comments:
Post a Comment