For the last few months I’ve been trying to formulate my feelings about “Mad Max Fury Road” in a way that was both cohesive and cognate (more so, in a way that made sense on a broader spectrum) and I think I got it, so here we go. Obligatory warning; this is going to contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to know about it, you should probably stop reading this.

The film is a revival in more ways than the initial ‘’summer-blockbuster-wowee-look-at-this’’. “Mad Max” has strong, independent female characters, phenomenally done practical effects and stunts, big car chases with bigger explosions, and then, of course, the beautifully designed sets and characters,  and while we may see these things (or think we do) in film all the time, we don’t see it as often as we should. When looking at a lot of recent films, they’ll often get the ”it was great and awesome and sweet… well, except-” review. I won’t name any names, but I can guarantee you’ve all got at least one in mind that fits this bill, and it sucks when something pitfalls and strays so far from what we’ve been told it will be. A lot of times, movies (especially “summer blockbusters”) have great big action and great big bad guys… Except the effects looked bad, or the acting was subpar, or a huge group of people is left out or objectified. It’s a sequence of events that a ton of filmmakers have either followed very strictly, or payed homage to, or ”done as a joke”, but regardless; that’s a lot of the movies we are seeing, and not only is it a problem, it’s also just plain boring.

Last May, Jen​ and Sylvia Soska, of Twisted Twins Productions, posted a tweet saying “Sometimes movies have so many amazing FX & tech to make it look (expletive) perfect that they forget to put a film in there too.” Not only could they not be more correct, but they also bring up an extremely vital part of cinema, especially action cinema. Far too often we are exposed to films that are so chock-full of big explosions and stunning visuals that we don’t really realize there’s no story in the midst of all the madness. On the contrary, “Mad Max” not only had strong- visually and otherwise, characters, but it was so full of story that it was nearly impossible to think about anything other than the film while watching it, prompting you to have to watch it three or four times to really get the totality of the detail in the plot. The characters are striking, the chases are fantastical, and the storyline is strong and empowering.

The character design was an entirely other beat. Both the makeup and the costuming departments absolutely blew it out of the water, leaving nothing on the screen unnoticed. Not only are the different classes in the Wasteland all visually mind-blowing and different, but they’re also exquisitely executed. All of the different character designs manage to group together in a way that fits the world George Miller created perfectly. The film used practical effects for all of the makeup- and nearly all of the stunts, which is something we haven’t seen in a big budget studio film in a while. A lot of people have argued that it would’ve been easier to have used CGI, but George Miller and the crew were dead-set on using practical effects, which are a huge part of what made the previous films in the franchise so fantastic,  and I couldn’t agree more with their choice to go practical.

There’s a level of reality that you cannot achieve with CGI, and with how raw and wrenching the story is, it’d be a disservice to have faked the action. The film’s setting is a perfect example of the ability to mix CGI and practicality. George Miller made nearly everything, and used landscape that served as a base for his world, then going in to build it up and colour correct it in post. The landscape is visually beautiful on it’s own, but without the equally beautiful  characters to fill the Wasteland- and surrounding areas, the film wouldn’t be as strong as it is. Each character, while still fitting a certain sub-species or gang, is extremely distinct, which is a necessity in a post-dystopian film. The character designs were extremely sound, and all kept within this fantastic wasteland apocalyptic realm that we’ve all come to love, and by sticking to that overall theme, everyone in the film looks in-place and matching.

The setting aids in the same way, while they did do a good amount of green screen work on the set backgrounds, they physically built almost everything in the movie, which aided to it’s realisticness. It’s been a long time since we got a movie like this, especially one that was so strong overall, and I’m hoping that it’s a wake up call, or just a calling, to other filmmakers to expand and learn to mix CGI with what we already have. Practicality works, and it’s time for a come back.  

George Miller and the entire MMFR crew couldn’t have brought back Max Rockatansky’s twisted, crazy world in a better way, and I cannot wait to see what else they do with the revival. The film opens with a quote that sticks with you well after the fact, and perfectly sums the story up, so I’ll leave you with that. May you ride eternal, shiny and chrome,

“Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves?” -The First History Man