Mad Max: Fury Road: written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris; directed by George Miller; starring Tom Hardy (Max Rockatansky), Charlize Theron (Imperator Furiosa), Nicholas Hoult (Nux), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Immortan Joe), Zoe Kravitz (Toast the Knowing), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (The Splendid Angharad), Riley Keough (Capable), Abbey Lee (The Dag), and Courtney Eaton (Cheedo the Fragile) (2015): Still tons of fun the second time around, on a small screen. The benefit of watching Fury Road on a TV rather than a movie screen? More time to notice all the little world-building details George Miller and company put in the movie. A grand, taut adventure movie. Highly recommended.
Jacob's Ladder: written by Bruce Joel Rubin; directed by Adrian Lyne; starring Tim Robbins (Jacob Singer), Elizabeth Pena (Jezzie), and Danny Aiello (Louis) (1990): Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, which came out the same year as this, 1990) seems to have gotten indigestion from a combination of Roman Catholicism, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Viet Nam-era conspiracy theories. Director Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Flashdance, 9 1/2 Weeks) is not the first person I'd choose to direct an occult thriller. Though he does give us a lot of naked Elizabeth Pena, and Tim Robbins seems to be shirtless for two-thirds of the movie.
But Lyne does base the 'look' of some of the film's 'demons' on things like Francis Bacon paintings rather than traditional horns-and-tails depictions (though there are also horns and tails). These, including a recurring hooded, vibrating figure, work pretty well. Well, well until Lyne goes to the well once too often, in the process showing us so much of 'Shaky Man' that it ceases to be creepy and instead clearly becomes a mannequin attached to a paint mixing machine.
Admittedly, if I came across a mannequin attached to a paint mixing machine during my travels, I'd probably be weirded out. Well, no. Now that I've seen Jacob's Ladder, I'd know that Adrian Lyne was around somewhere.
I think this movie probably works pretty well for a viewer who hasn't read or watched much horror. From my standpoint, the horror peaks early, in a genuinely terrific subway sequence featuring Robbins and one bad subway stop. Things gradually fall apart after that.
The main plot problem is that the Viet Nam conspiracy stuff and the occult stuff ultimately have no real connection to one another by the very rules set up by the movie. Rubin clearly intended the Viet Nam stuff to be important -- there's even a portentous title card about secret Viet Nam drug trials as the film concludes. But the occult stuff seems meant to be a separate, universal phenomenon that stitches together Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism.
The performances are all fine, especially that of the perennially under-appreciated Elizabeth Pena, who's much better and more interesting than her character has been written. Tim Robbins is good, as pretty much always. Lyne makes one terrible, terrible choice in sound effects, however. During the opening scene set in Viet Nam, one of the recurring sound effects for an explosion is a long-standing sound effect that I remember from 1970's TV shows that include Battlestar: Galactica and Buck Rogers. This completely destroyed my suspension of disbelief for the Viet Nam stuff. I kept expecting Twiki to show up. Lightly recommended.
Mad Max: Fury Road: written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris; directed by George Miller; starring Tom Hardy (Max Rockatansky), Charlize Theron (Imperator Furiosa), Nicholas Hoult (Nux), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Immortan Joe), Zoe Kravitz (Toast the Knowing), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (The Splendid Angharad), Riley Keough (Capable), Abbey Lee (The Dag), and Courtney Eaton (Cheedo the Fragile) (2015):
Gigantic in a way that the previous three Mad Max movies couldn't be because of budgetary restraints, Mad Max: Fury Road puts that money on the screen, and does an amazing number of things without CGI. When CGI does stroll in to dominate, it actually does so in a sublime way, as a dust super-storm that seems more true to Dune than anything that's ever been put on the screen as Dune.
A sort of soft reboot of the original Mad Max films, this one slots in after the original Mad Max, though some of Max's flashbacks suggest that the original film doesn't supply quite the same origin narrative for the series. Tom Hardy's Max, a former police officer, does have his familiar Interceptor from the first two movies, though. For awhile, anyway.
Hardy is a much quieter presence than the young Mel Gibson, though at least some of that seems to be by design: Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa is the movie's hero, and a very compelling one. Max is along to learn to be heroic again.
Of the 110 story minutes of the film, about 80 involve various iterations of a car chase. Here in the post-apocalypse, the cars have been assembled from anything that works and engineered to be as dangerous to others as possible. Along the way, Miller throws in a visual homage to fellow Aussie Peter Weir's early film, The Cars That Ate Paris. And a nod to one of the iconic stunts in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And a guy playing a flame-throwing guitar while chained to the front of a truck. There's a lot going on.
The chase, or The Chase, or whatever you want to call it, is dizzying at times but fully comprehensible. Miller and his storyboard people, including comic-book writer/artist Brendan McCarthy, who's co-credited on the script, have figured out everything and where everything needs to go. And go it does.
Is this a feminist film? Well, when compared to pretty much every other blockbuster movie of the last 25 years, yes. The main plot riffs on Boko Haram and its kidnapping of young girls to be brides, on arranged marriages and institutionalized rape, and on the utter cruddiness of many men with power.
The main antagonist, Immortan Joe, is a wheezing blob of a dictator who needs to be poured and prodded into a suit that makes him look fearsome. He keeps young women to produce offspring in the reproductively challenged future. Imperator Furiosa, who has worked for Joe for years, has hatched a plan to get the women and herself to safety. Max finds himself along for the ride, acted upon for about the first 40 minutes of the movie before he finally starts to act.
Visually impressive and kinetic as hell, Mad Max: Fury Road also offers some clever twists and some nicely observed flashes of characterization and world-building along the way. It's a great action movie that doesn't insult the eye or the brain. Highly recommended.
