Let's be honest: as much as it contains a cult aura, the films in the trilogy Mad Max, run by George Miller in 1979, 1981 and 1985, they are not examples of quality cinema. Ok, they are not a complete disaster and many cool things can be seen in the features that made Mel Gibson's face known in the world. Among the qualities are Miller's creativity in making great action sequences with little money, a striking visual identity and a simple story, to the point of being universal and, therefore, easy to assimilate. In this way, the Australian feature film made independently won fans all over the world and made the name of its protagonist a brand.
Exact 30 years have passed since the last film in the trilogy, Beyond the Dome of Thunder, and, this week, hits theaters Mad Max: Fury Road, the new production by Guerreiro da Estrada. Still under the command of George Miller, Mad Max changes his face: Gibson's blue eyes give way to the frowning face of Tom Hardy, an actor who has established himself as an action star by showing his good form on tapes as War is war and Batman the Dark Knight Rises. With the exception of the exchange that took place in the protagonist, Estrada da Fúria brings exactly what conquered the admirers of action cinema in the late 1970s until the mid 1980s. The car chases are there, as well as the sweeping look and the whole identity scenic feature to the cine series. However, even for those who like the original films (case of the one who writes you), something sounds very wrong in the new film and this is strange, and very disappointing.
Over the 120 minutes of projection, the viewer is bombarded by a true symphony of sound and fury, which starts from an extremely simple plot: tired of seeing the exploitation suffered by a group of women considered property of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), leader of a village where the few survivors of a devastated land live, Furious Empress (Charlize Theron) makes an escape, with the objective of taking the girls to a place called Vale Verde and guaranteeing their safety and happiness. Feeling betrayed, Joe gathers an army of young warriors and faithful followers, and sets off in pursuit of Furiosa in order to recover his assets. Pinned to one of Immortan's dying soldiers as a kind of “walking blood bag”, Max (Hardy) finds himself in the middle of a private war, in which he needs to stand on one side to ensure his own survival.
Characters, plot and conflicts are all presented in the first minutes of Mad Max: Fury Road which, from its first minute to the last, becomes a hyperbolic visual and audible spectacle, to the point of making the experience of watching it extremely tiring. Longer than the old films, Miller's new work does not take advantage of its duration in an attempt to deliver a richer experience to the public, something that the mythology of the Road Warrior is certainly capable of providing. However, what we have on Estrada da Fúria is the action for the action, a parade of bizarre things that, if properly explored, would generate a work out of the conventional and, why not, capable of warning about the consequences of the action of man in his world , as good dystopias have been able to perform both in cinema, literature and other media over the years.
That said, the question remains: to whom Mad Max: Fury Road is directed? Those who are over 40 and grew up with Mel Gibson's Max as a hero, are certainly cinephiles who are no longer content with just a tangle of action scenes; the kids accustomed to the no-brainer shows promoted by Michael Bay and company may even enjoy the celluloid beating promoted by Miller, however he may be frightened by the grotesque (and, therefore, beautiful) look of the production. In this way, Estrada da Fúria becomes an unknown quantity, whose certainty is only one: subtlety is not a road through which George Miller transits.
See the full factsheet and full cast of Mad Max: Fury Road
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