Thoughts on Mad Max

Some people are Star Trek geeks, some are Star Wars geeks, some are comic book geeks, some are gamer geeks...

...I'm a Mad Max geek.  When I saw The Road Warrior back in 1981(holy crap, has it been that long?  I'm ancient), I was transfixed by the Most Badass Movie Ever.  So, after waiting thirty years for another installment, I was stoked to hear Fury Road was finally happening.

Then I heard all the rumblings about how it was nothing but feminist propaganda, and it sucked, and Max was a pussy, and on and on.  Well, I decided to make up my own mind, so a bunch of us went out yesterday to see it.

Spoilers ahead...




Most, if not all of these negative reviews came from people who hadn't done the most basic thing necessary to review a movie.  You know, actually watch it.  Yes, there is a bit of 'feminist' content, but if you want to avoid that in this day and age, you need to either go live in a cave, or raze Hollywood to the ground and sow the ruins with salt and acid, that not one stone should stand upon another.  The tribe of biker women?  That required a little suspension of disbelief, but no more so than:

--A custom vehicle made of two cherry '59 Caddies welded together, which has somehow been through years of this post-apocalypse world without a scratch, and with its tremendously-difficult-to-manufacture curved windshields completely intact.

--Performing repairs while clinging to the bottom of a moving rig.  Hell, I can't even attach an air cleaner without dropping every tool and part a half-dozen times, and that's while I'm in the middle of the garage.  (I rarely drop my beer, though.)

--A dust storm/tornado that somehow engenders a perfectly clear area in the middle of it.  Anyone who's been through a dust storm knows better.

I could go on, but seriously--who cares?  This isn't real life, people.  It's an excuse to watch insane custom vehicles, horrifically overblown supervillains, heroes on the edge and a metric shitload of ultraviolence.  Insightful social commentary is not expected, and any attempt at such should be completely disregarded.  The whinings from certain corners of the Manosphere really are a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Truth be told, I was more bothered by Max's 'tortured-past' hallucinations than anything involving Furiosa or the 'Vuvalini.'  Max has always been haunted by an ugly past, but in all the other movies, he was mad-pissed, not mad-crazy.  They've turned him from a burned-out loner who moonlights as The Mighty Hand of Vengeance to a psychotic who's gone off his meds.

That was my only real problem with the whole movie, and it was the hardest thing to ignore about it.  But I'd still see the whole thing again.  It's just kind of ironic that so many conservative types are throwing a fit over something they haven't even watched.  Isn't that what Leftists do?

UPDATE:  The illustrious Jack Donovan has my back on this one.  I'm in good company.  

UPDATE THE SECOND:  Jennifer, who is made of equal parts awesome and really awesome, is also in my corner.  I am totally winning the internetz.