films you've seen recently and would NOT recommend

[Leo]

i liked "mm:fury road", the action (while certainly big-budget) is still much more gritty and real compared to the typical CG comic book fantasy of the superhero movies.

i still have a soft spot for the first one and "road warrior" (not so much "thunderdome"), saw them as a young one and loved how the characters seemed really menacing: the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla, the whole thing was bikers, engines, bondage and ultra violence, plus a weird homoerotic over-the-top gritty Tom of Finland feel to it that you'll never find in movies like "the avengers" or "iron man".

 

[IdleRich]

I liked the old ones too (though maybe I won't watch them again) - but the new Mad Max was incredibly underwhelming. Impressive (I guess) action scenes that went on so long that I tuned out, literally no plot and nothing even scary or interesting in the way of a bad guy. Just some chap who chased them for a while and then died as easily as one of his henchmen. Max was totally anonymous - Tom Hardy I believe but could have been anyone really, I'm surprised they bothered with a name actor, would have been cheaper to just use an unknown or just a computer graphic, it wouldn't have mattered.
Apparently he's got material for about four more films in the same series, well that can't be hard because I could think of the plot and script of this one in about thirty seconds.

 

[Leo]

I could think of the plot and script of this one in about thirty seconds.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

the chases went on forever. im not sure there even WAS anything but chases in this film. why was it 120 minutes?

i still have a soft spot for the first one and "road warrior" (not so much "thunderdome"), saw them as a young one and loved how the characters seemed really menacing: the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla, the whole thing was bikers, engines, bondage and ultra violence, plus a weird homoerotic over-the-top gritty Tom of Finland feel to it that you'll never find in movies like "the avengers" or "iron man".

i get that this is more rugged and realistic than most CGI but it seemed to laze on the crutch of being 'real car crashes' with 'real cars'. but that does not necessarily = excitement.

back in the 80s, the punky characters and costumes were menacing, but in 2015, i realise i only liked them in fury road for nostalgic reasons, and for characters that were kinda weird looking, compared to how most characters in these films look nowadays. but it wasnt anything new really. its just giving people a slight return to their youth/80s nostalgia. no wonder its so popular.

more than that, i dont get why this was a mad max film, and not a female spin off. max was barely important to anything that happened, barely had anything to say, didnt seem to do anything important. he was just a bit part in a film that was meant to be about him.

i also just hate nicolas hoult.

but i am in the minority lol.

mark cousins ‏@markcousinsfilm May 26
Fell in love w big films cos of their thrill.Fell out of love w them cos too many seemed calculated+cynical. New Mad Max film restores faith
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@markcousinsfilm Yes bud great to be reminded that it doesn't NEED to be formulaic shite just because there's money on the screen.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

also saw the girl who walks home alone at night yesterday. maybe im not in a particularly receptive mood at the moment, or there are just a lot of overhyped films out, but this wasnt particularly great either. it looks good, in a sort of jarmusch-meets-sin city sort of way, and it has lots of cool/stark imagery, but after a while, every scene seemed to be stretched beyond its usefulness/any real meaning. it does touch on a few interesting questions, but it only really hints at them, it never really explores them in any purposeful way. also typical to see critics use it as a way to be predictable and see it as an allegory for gender relations in iran. i see it less about gender politics than about hijab politics. but anyway, its a 'cool' film, but there is just nothing much to it beyond that. its empty. just a decent student/first film. about as good as the last jarmusch film actually (also about vampires, and also with some middle eastern connections). someone should show them as a vacuous vampires double bill.

 

[IdleRich]

"more than that, i dont get why this was a mad max film, and not a female spin off. max was barely important to anything that happened, barely had anything to say, didnt seem to do anything important. he was just a bit part in a film that was meant to be about him."

Exactly. Add in the fact that the baddie was equally uninteresting and you've got one of the most boring battles in history.
Why was it a Mad Max film? Why was it called Fury Road? They could have put together almost any two (or three if they wanted to push the boat out) words that sound kinda macho to make the title, it certainly wasn't related to what happened on screen. Maybe that's ever so slightly unfair, I suppose they were sort of on a road and at times I'm sure some of the people were a bit angry.
I wanted to like it and maybe I should have watched it in the cinema but the more I think about it the more empty it seems.

 

[IdleRich]

"also saw the girl who walks home alone at night yesterday. maybe im not in a particularly receptive mood at the moment, or there are just a lot of overhyped films out"

Saw this a while back before it was getting so much hype and, perhaps for that reason, I enjoyed it more than you. It is a kind of "small" film, like many Jarmusch films in fact, the kind of film that is great if you see it out of nowhere as a curiosity but which can't stand up to the weight of a load of hype. As it happens I seem to be enjoying Jarmusch films more than I used to now - I really liked the vampire/heroin one and I liked the one with the assassin where nothing at all happened although I can see that it could easily infuriate a lot of people.
I think I wanted to see the Girl Alone one as a companion to Only Lovers Left Alive in fact cos I enjoyed that so much. You could say it was about Iran, apparently it was filmed in America, though maybe that doesn't matter, I get the feeling that Bad City was supposed to be in Iran, or maybe not, maybe it was just nowhere, I dunno.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

it is hard when something gets great reviews and then you go in thinking, 'okay then, WOW me'. prob not the best way to watch a film. though saying that, i had no idea that MMFR was getting such good reviews until after i came out the cinema (and then i was more stunned than when i was actually watching it). i think thats why i like film festivals, you know so little about the film until you see it.

 

[UFO over easy]

Why was it a Mad Max film? Why was it called Fury Road? They could have put together almost any two (or three if they wanted to push the boat out) words that sound kinda macho to make the title

lol and they say criticism is dead
aside from this being an obviously daft assessment method it seems odd to me to be criticising the film for being 'nostalgic' and 'macho' on the one hand whilst also insisting on max dominating the entire film (as though almost every event being seen from his perspective wasn't enough anyway). i don't think anyone would be up in arms about an only slightly less than all-powerful male lead were it not for the mere presence of strong/er female characters. blindingly obvious but the 'Fury' in the title far from being a random 'macho' word is presumably an acknowledgement of Furiosa's role in the film, and i think it's telling that so many men are focusing not on that but on the male characters not meeting their regressive expectations of what a strong male character in an action movie should look like

think the "too noisy and too much action" argument is basically a non-starter a) it's a shlocky action film b) it's a clever, ambitious one - i can't think of an equivalent that manages to communicate so much so efficiently. theres no let up and it works to the films advantage. folks that can't see past the pyrotechnics (see also kermode) seem to me to just be admitting that they're old and can't keep up

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

it's a clever, ambitious one - i can't think of an equivalent that manages to communicate so much so efficiently.

what is it communicating?

its not so much a longing for old school action movie men, but just for a film about its lead character to actually show that character a bit more. its not like mel gibson in mad max 1 said loads anyway, but he was at least the main protagonist. to say that is not to say i dislike female led action movies, because i dont.

 

[UFO over easy]

every scene, action or otherwise, is filled with little details that tell you about the world and the characters, and how they relate to it and each other - that's what the films actually about imo
and it's why i think it's a strength of the film that max isn't a scene stealing hero - it allows for things to develop in much more surprising and interesting ways than a straightforward "hero in post-apocalyptic universe saves the day" plot-line

 

[baboon2004]

I wanted to like it and maybe I should have watched it in the cinema but the more I think about it the more empty it seems.

Saw it in the cinema and it was terrible there too. I liked the first five minutes, but by the end was laughing at how bad it was. I presume Tom Hardy was taking the piss? The baddies of course made a fatal mistake in leaving the citadel completely unguarded, leaving the way open for Max's brilliant plan of spending the second hour going back exactly the way they'd come over the first hour.

 

[IdleRich]

aside from this being an obviously daft assessment method it seems odd to me to be criticising the film for being 'nostalgic' and 'macho' on the one hand whilst also insisting on max dominating the entire film (as though almost every event being seen from his perspective wasn't enough anyway).

What assessment method is that? The method of pointing out that the title is stupid?
Who criticised the film for being macho? Perhaps you deliberately misunderstood but what I said was that the title was randomly chosen and that any other set of macho words would have worked equally well.
Also, I think there is a slight difference between asking for the main character to have a tiny smidgeon of personality and "insisting that he dominates the entire film". But why bother even trying to discuss what was actually said? It's best to just sarcastically dismiss it.

i don't think anyone would be up in arms about an only slightly less than all-powerful male lead were it not for the mere presence of strong/er female characters

Again, it's not how powerful the male or female characters are - it's how interesting they aren't.

"blindingly obvious but the 'Fury' in the title far from being a random 'macho' word is presumably an acknowledgement of Furiosa's role in the film"

It's blinding obvious but only presumably? Which? To be honest I kinda assumed that at first too but I understand the next film is gonna be called Furiosa so I thought maybe not.

think the "too noisy and too much action" argument is basically a non-starter a) it's a shlocky action film b) it's a clever, ambitious one

I agree it wouldn't really be fair to complain about there being lots of action, it was an action film after all. That's why I didn't. I do now realise that I find extended action scenes boring but really that's down to me. What disappointed me was how unambitious and stupid the film was apart from that. Oh well.

 

[craner]

Anything featuring Benedict Cumberbatch is unwatchable for me.

 

[craner]

i dislike female led action movies, because i dont.

Modesty Blaise is my favorite.

 

[Corpsey]

I'd liken 'Mad Max' to 'The Raid', though its plot was somewhat less disposable than 'The Raid' and the action wasn't anywhere near as thrilling (for me). It's plot is, fittingly, an unwieldy, unsubtle vehicle for visceral action, both as it is shot and in the way it is shot. To be honest I found 'Fury Road' hard to warm to in its opening fifteen minutes, it was just so loud and OTT, but I definitely appreciated its stylistic eccentricity and the strong sense of a Directorial influence being exerted, contra most blockbusters (even the good ones, i.e. Marvel Universe, which are terrifically entertaining but fairly anonymous, aesthetically).

I would imagine that calling the film 'Mad Max' is simply a matter of branding - can you imagine Miller being given the budget he had for this without the 'Mad Max' brand affixed to it? Also, as has lamentably been shown by that campaign against the film's supposed feminism, its a good way of tricking men into watching a film that effectively stars a woman (I thought Theron was great, incidentally... The other (young) women, not so much.)

The plot was pretty thin and, although the concept of the post-apocalyptic world was in some respects quite interesting (I've seen arguments that the villain can be seen sympathetically, for example, as a man trying to rebuild the human race in a healthier, Rosie Huntington-Whitely-esque image, e.g.), I can see why people would be frustrated with it for not offering much in the way of dialogue/characterisation. To me it was just an incredibly expensive B-movie, but I think that isn't necessarily a bad thing to have, given the inventive, anarchic energy going into it. Reminds me of Sam Raimi directing Spider Man, for example. I appreciated the goriness of Fury Road, for one thing. It wasn't really groundbreaking as a film so much as a throwback to that era of gritty, violent genre cinema with deeper messages smuggled into the subtext.

Saying all this I was rather disappointed in it after all the rave reviews but I certainly didn't react to it as negatively as others in this thread. I definitely see why people don't like it, though, and I often caught myself thinking that it was guilty of the same sins that would have Michael Bay hauled over the coals by critics.

 

[IdleRich]

other (young) women, not so much.

They were a joke weren't they? And I guess quite a good one in as much as they made me laugh.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

It wasn't really groundbreaking as a film so much as a throwback to that era of gritty, violent genre cinema with deeper messages smuggled into the subtext.

thing is, the original b movies, and exploitation movies were actually more challenging and radical. this was just b-movie style used for more or less the same purpose as every other modern blockbuster, with some strands of lowbrow aspirational feminism thrown in to catch the zeitegeist.

Saying all this I was rather disappointed in it after all the rave reviews but I certainly didn't react to it as negatively as others in this thread. I definitely see why people don't like it, though, and I often caught myself thinking that it was guilty of the same sins that would have Michael Bay hauled over the coals by critics.

its basically just a bay film with some late 70s/80s throwbacks to please older audience members/people nostalgic for old culture and a few jane campion themes scattered about.

 

[Leo]

ya know, it's just an escapist summer action movie, not a ingmar bergman film.

(aka the dissensian film equivalent of "so what if it's not groundbreaking, it's just got a good beat".)

 

[UFO over easy]

What assessment method is that? The method of pointing out that the title is stupid?

sorry, i assumed there was more to your post than flippancy