Anghus Houvouras on Mad Max: Fury Road…
Hyperbole. It’s the designer drug of choice for the cinema fanboys online, still clinging to the idea that there are only masterpieces and unmitigated disasters. Keep this in mind as we discuss George Miller’s wildly praised new blockbuster.
Mad Max: Fury Road has been this strange piece of pop culture currency. Ever since the world got its first new glimpses of Miller’s latest post-apocalyptic action epic, it became heralded as a champion for classic film-making techniques and storytelling. The movie arrived in cinemas practically pre-ordained as the summer movie messiah. The golden child that would deliver us from the weak-willed studio blockbuster and heal the lame franchises plaguing our cineplexes. This is it, party people, the movie that will restore the status quo to the glory days of the 1980s when The Road Warrior and The Terminator reigned supreme.
Christ almighty. That’s a lot for a movie to live up to. I was just hoping it would be good.
While I thought Fury Road was great, it does seem to be getting a strange amount of praise. Wild, overreaching praise. Are we so starved for a competent blockbuster that were going to canonize George Miller for making yet another post apocalyptic car chase movie?
Here’s some of the comments that are making me feel like Mugatu on crazy pills.
THE LUCID ACTION!
Yes. Fury Road has some ridiculously well done action sequences with a sense of scope and geography sorely lacking in this shaky-cam era of films that make action sequences look like the Director of Photography forgot to take his seizure medication. Miller does a great job of conducting this kinetic symphony. High octane thrills with a beautiful sense of scope and visual simplicity.
The tears shed for the lack of lucidity in modern action films may be justified. In a world where crying over a movie isn’t seen as a horrible character flaw.
PRACTICAL EFFECTS!
This is something you’re going to hear all year. Practical effects are something that got the heave-ho right about the time James Cameron figured out how to use morphing to create the T2 in Judgement Day. We were so accustomed to seeing everything a certain way. Then, computers changed that. Hollywood Studios realized that they could create unimaginable new worlds with this technology, but instead committing to delivering us the same city destroying, explosion filled, action scenes for the next 20 years.
God bless George Miller and his dedication to putting it all in front of the camera. Kudos for doing what any good, non-lazy, blockbuster filmmaker should be doing. After two decades plus of filming guys clad in green spandex and tennis balls on a stick and calling it an action scene, we have something that shows how much more powerful well staged effects can be to the reality of a cinematic universe. Where the physics are real and the fire is actual fire. Where ideas are created on the field of battle, not a field of render servers churning out one second of finished footage every eight hours.
See, the thing is, we already knew this. You only need to have watched the Star Wars prequels, the Jurassic World trailer, or The Hobbit to see just how terrible modern blockbusters have become when compared to their more hands-on predecessors. Virtual cinematography and special FX have made anything possible, but how much of it captures that same cinematic magic? I suppose people needed an example of things done right before they started realizing just how wrong everything was. You’ve been fine with all this Taco Bell until you discovered the taqueria downtown. Now it just doesn’t taste as good.
The practical effects drum is going to get one hell of a banging this year. First with Fury Road, then with The Force Awakens. Every film geek you know is going to be screaming for more puppets and less computers. More squibs and fewer digitally inserted blood spatters.
I take no umbrage with the praise being given to Fury Road. Far from it. It’s the hyperbole that digs at the base of my skull like a rusty drillbit. The online cinematic fanboy legion who try to make every good movie the opening salvo of a major cultural conflict, or every bad movie another nail in the coffin for quality cinema. People who try to turn movies into stumping points that align with their views. Who don’t judge the movie itself but it’s broader cultural impact.
Praise George Miller for making a wildly entertaining, somewhat redundant movie. But let’s get past the idea that he’s reinvented the wheel.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
https://youtu.be/8HTiU_hrLms?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published May 16, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
