Bookshelf Battle

WITNESS ME, 3.5 READERS!

BQB here with a review of the latest Mad Max flick.

It’s funny, 3.5 readers. We’re up to 5 films now set in the world of Mad Max and I dare say the franchise never really hit its stride until the fourth one in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road where the titular Max took a back seat and let a woman do all the driving.

Sounds like my life. I’ve never driven a car with a woman in it who didn’t backseat drive me but anyway.

For the uninitiated, these films take place in a future, post-apocalyptic world, one where nuclear strikes have left nothing but desolate, desert wasteland and packs of crazed weirdos clad in the freakiest leather biker outfits you’ve ever seen go to war over limited resources. Those wars take place on the road with dusty, rusty scrap heap cars and bikes turned into killing machines. In fact, the second installment in this franchise was called “The Road Warrior,” but I digress.

In the last film, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) hijacked a truck and absconded with the forced wives of vile warlord Immortan Joe, with Mad Max as her ally and co-pilot (Tom Hardy).

In this prequel, we see the story of how young Furiosa (Alyla Browne plays kid Furiosa and Anya Taylor-Joy plays young adult Furiosa) ended up in forced servitude to Immortan Joe, because that’s totally a story we all wanted to see and though I joke, it’s not a bad one.

The plot? Very young Furiosa once lived an idyllic life in an oasis, a rare patch of land with greenery and water, beloved by her sister and mother. Alas, she is kidnapped by biker weirdoes in the employ of Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Screw Thor. This very well might be the role Chris Hemsworth was born to play, for he chews scenery and loves it as a raving psychotic villain, totally drunk on power and in love with himself, a wannabe ruler who can’t quite figure out how to turn his gang of motorcycle madmen into the empire that he desires. I don’t know if it’s the prosthetic nose or the extra-nasally Australian accent (Hemsworth already is an Aussie but he just speaks like he needs to blow his nose throughout the film) but Hemsworth really nails this role which is rare for him as he almost always plays the good guy.

Double alas, Furiosa’s mother is killed in an attempt to free young Furiosa. From there on, it’s a series of tragedies, battles and wars as Furiosa goes from kid to young adult, played by the wide-eyed Anya whose wide eyes do most of the acting and tugging of your heart strings. Furiosa is eventually sold into slavery to Immortan Joe and when given the choice between escaping or learning how to become a kick ass road warrior under the tutelage of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke doing an uncanny young Mel Gibson impression I assume to give this flick its dose of Mad Max cred) she chooses the latter, for in doing so, she will develop the skills to take on the nasal talking doofus who killed her mother and ruined her childhood.

The good? It’s a pretty solid action flick and a darn good time. It is a revenge fantasy, the overall point being that Hemsworth hams it up, playing Dr. Dementus up as such a total dick cheeseburger with fries that you can’t wait for Furiosa to give him his comeuppance.

The bad? Fury Road was a masterpiece. I always thought George Miller had a great idea in the Mad Max movies but wasn’t able to truly bring his vision to life until 2015 when film technology caught up to his ideas, allowing special effects to bring all those awesome road wars to life.

That was my long-winded way of saying that while this is a good movie, it’s no Fury Road. There are some awesome road war car chase battle scenes with all sorts of mayhem afoot. But there are no weirdoes playing guitars, jumping around on bungie chords, flames shooting out as they jump around and so on.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that this movie doesn’t have a lot. It’s just that Fury Road had SOOOO much.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip the theater. Chauvinist pig that I am, there’s a part of me that wants to complain about turning over a male character’s film series to a chick, but the last film was really good and this one is a great prequel. To its credit, Furiosa survives with her wits, her skills, and yes, she is fueled by hatred of her enemies, which Dr. Dementus foolishly advises her is a good thing. You don’t see her doing that tired old cliche of being a tiny woman throwing around a 300-pound goon. She just runs them over instead. That works.