Max (Mad Max, The Road Warrior)
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| "Miffed Max" doesn't have the right ring to it... |
So, the trailer for Mad Max Fury Road has just been
released. Have to say, looks pretty awesome. I like the reliance on actual
physical effects rather than CGI (although I’m sure there will be more than a
little CGI enhancement involved).
A few thoughts? Why not?
Tom Hardy is the new Mad Max. Not the worst choice, but can’t help but feel this is more about man-of-the-moment stunt casting rather than actual suitability. I remember a few years back they were kicking around the idea of Sam Worthington and Jeremy Renner, either option I feel may have been better (Worthington himself also being Australian). Still, Hardy at least never disappoints; he has acting chops, a suitably sombre scowl and makes a convincing action hero.The villains are pretty menacing, a cross between Humongous’ marauders from the second film and the ‘bad’ tribe from Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. Although, how they all manage to look so anemic in the desert heat I’m not sure- must have a poor diet.On the subject of villains, Immortan Joe, one of Thunder Road’s bad guy roster (and possibly the lead villain), is played by none other than Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played lead antagonist Toecutter in the first Mad Max. Toecutter ended up under the wheels of a truck in that film’s climax, and what’s very apparent with Immortan Joe is his severe facial injuries… This is only conjecture, but is Keays-Byrne playing the same character by a new alias, or is this just a nice nod to the original franchise, a way of keeping that’s films DNA? Let’s wait and see.
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| Depech Mode re-imagined by H.R Giger |
It’s nice to see they’ve kept the same grungy and gritty trash-can aesthetic, especially prevalent in the vehicle designs.We also see Charlize Theron, another ‘proper’ thesb. She’s playing the absurdly named Imperator Furiosa, who believes that she can “save the world” if only she can make it back to her home town. What she really needs is a heroic-someone to help reach her goal…The set up would seem to have Max captured by a vicious road gang, forcibly tattooed (pause the trailer and take a peek- they’re donor details- nice touch) and strapped up onto the front of a vehicle ala’ The Road Warrior’s memorable hostages. No doubt Max witnesses some truly heinous crimes while he’s helpless to intervene, and I’m sure that gets him pretty ‘mad’.With names such as “Immortan” and “Furiosa” it’s good the film has retained some of the bizarreness that helped make the previous movies such cult-classics. I mean, come on? “Word burgers” is a phrase that ‘Clock Work Orange’s Anthony Burgess would be proud of. In one scene, barely audible but still very much present, Humungus calls forth his “smegma crazies” and “gayboy berserkers”. That’s not forgetting the touches of visual surealnesss, such as the tango-dancing bikers or the popping-eyes before Toecutter’s head-on collision.
I don’t own the first 2 Mad Max films, although as a
teenager I had them on VHS. I watched the second a lot more than the first as
it was more of a typical action film. To refresh my memory, and relive some
nostalgic moments, I Youtube’d some of the scenes. To be honest, I’m blown away
by how spectacularly nasty some of it is. It’s not necessarily gory or
explicit, but just really, really nasty. I doubt the new film will be anywhere
near so rough-edged.
Case and point; remember the tanker chase in Mad Max 2?
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| Mad Max 2's center-piece chase scene. |
Firstly, one of the defenders on the tanker is hit with that grappling hook- it punctures his leg, causing the jeep that fired it to flip. His leg is then pulling the weight of the flipped jeep before finally tearing him out of his barricade, only for him to be rolled on by the blazing jeep. Ouch. And that’s one of the ‘heroes’.The woman with the crossbow defending the top of the tanker is shot by the marauders, collapsing into the barbed wire. As if that’s not bad enough, the villains then try to reclaim her body- no doubt for some dodgy sexual practices. Her friend, the cripple, tries in vain to keep her body- only to find himself pulled from the tanker and hurled under the wheels of pursuing cars. His murderers drive away with the woman’s body, unhindered.
In the world of Mad Max, death is never glamorous. There are
no brave speeches, no meaningful last glances. Death is unromantic, brutal,
callous, sudden and often meaningless. I’m not sure if this is entirely to be
applauded, seeing as the violence is pretty much the sole aim of these films this
gives off very mixed messages (“hey kids, violence is terrible, let’s take a
look at some really grim stuff”), but it makes for a nihilistic antidote to the
sanitized action of most Hollywood fare.
“They've got you wrong. You're not a coward. STUPID, maybe.
But not a coward.”
The Gyro Captain
Will this new Mad Max stay true to its cold-blooded roots
with an 18 / R certificate, or will it bend cap-in-hand to the alter of
mainstream cinema with a top-end 15, or worse, a diluted 12a? I wait with
baited breath.
But, one thing’s for sure: the trailer sets the bench-mark
pretty high. Check it out:
“…And the Road Warrior... He Lives now, only in my memories.”
The Narrator
