Movies & TV

There is a dude whose official job is HYPE MAN and he rides around on a giant speaker setup and plays a heavy metal guitar that is also a flamethrower

What do you not understand

The movie's ridiculous presentation hides its fairly sophisticated inner workings. I'm not claiming it's high art, but it's not just pure stupid action a la Transformers or something. There is a lot of interesting storytelling happening just through careful attention to detail, and it's almost a case study in "show, don't tell"*. For example, we know a lot more about Furiosa than you'd expect. She's a capo in this horrific, misogynistic tyrant's society. Towards the end of the film, Max asks her what she's hoping for and she just answers "Redemption". The look in her eye tells us the rest. These little pieces are deliberately placed - we don't know the exact details of how she went from kidnapped slave girl to commander in the Immortan's forces, but we can figure out enough of it.

Or, let's look at Max's changes throughout the movie. He starts off deranged, disheveled, covered in matted hair - feral, in a word. Then he's captured and literally caged. He's got a muzzle on for the first third of the movie! He gets free, lashes out, and is slowly tamed by Furiosa and the other women. Ultimately he ends up helping two generations of women fight back against the tyrant who ruined their collective lives. I don't want to say that this has a direct meaning (something like "oh he's learning how to shed toxic masculinity and be a better ally!), since I think that literal interpretations tend to detract from emotional depth. Themes in story are best when they're expressing feeling and not a literal message. There is a lot going on with gender conflict. From the repeated "Who killed the world?!", to the obvious level of the wives fleeing the big gross dude, the one war boy slowly realizing he's just another foot soldier for a man who doesn't care about him, to the greater susceptibility of men to follow dangerous men to destructive ends while women seem more resistant to that.

Come to think of it, Fury Road is best compared to Chainsaw Man. The manga and anime are about a lot of things - the struggles of growing up poor in Japan's lost generation, a government that explicitly views you as an animal to be used for their own ends, the corrosive nature of workplace politics, cynical sexuality used for manipulation, and more. It's also about a man who is a fucking chainsaw. Ridiculous, over-the-top action serving as the capstone to a carefully planned world and story.

*I happen to think that "Show, don't tell" is overused as storytelling advice, but the execution here is flawless.

Not everyone needs to vibe to a movie. I've seen stuff that everyone was raving about and felt nothing. Like Juno didn't do anything for me, although the expectation that everyone loved it probably didn't help. Also maybe this isn't your thing. I'm in my mid-forties, and I know that my comrades in their twenties can't fucking sit through a whole movie, and that's fine. Also maybe you haven't a high expectation didn't help.

I guess I've had such low expectations for films, they're always such lib pieces of shit. Whereas Fury Road at least had patriarchal white men as the reason that everyone was fucked, and the rejection of all that as the way things are gonna get better. The film references the US oil wars, and frequently asks the question "who destroyed the world". It's pretty obvious that militaristic dudes destroyed the world, although it doesn't explicitly answer that.

Honestly you don't have to like it.

Mad Max is more vibes than Lore. The only other one I'd really recommend is Road Warrior, it's the Ur post apocalyptic movie and is a prototype for fury Road in many ways restrained by budget and the time it was made but has a more slow and realistic and brutal vibe. Fury Road is a lot ore fantasy feeling, Road Warrior is grim as hell.

Mad max road warrior and beyond thunderdome watch those too

Basically climate cataclysm leaves a wasteland ruled by warlords who taken over the last sources of water and power. Max was a cop in the first film which is more pre-apocalyptic and is set in Australia.

it's cool. it rules. it fuckin slaps. explosions, racing, overthrowing a reactionary tyrant. the real journey is the friends we made along the way (also seizing the means of water)

I grew up with the movies and my mom loved mel gibson (lol) so they have tremendous memorable value for me. But the bleakness of the scenery, the harshness of the people, the will to survive despite it all, it captured a real mood that people connect with. The wardrobe choices and sick automobiles made it even cooler.

The new one captured the original mood, tied it to current themes, and nailed the cinematography

Did you not think the movie was good? My wife and I were in the same boat as you when we saw it and we loved it.