Mad Max Fury Road-Hot Take

 

Mad Max Fury Road (2015 AU) George Miller adds another chapter into the Mad Max franchise in this high octane post apocolyptic action film. Charlize Theron stars as a woman escaping from a tyrannical warlord to find her own home. I'm not a fan of post-op films, or many action films or Mad Max for that matter so I was not inclined to go see it. I did watch it one day because I was bored and it was on streaming. See my sci-fi page for why I don't feature post-op films, https://hottakesonfilm.blogspot.com/p/science-fiction-sub-genres.html.  I take issue with the overuse of action in action films. I think it actually slows the pace. I once clocked 20 minutes of a running chase scene with nothing added to the story. In a 90 plus minute film, that's a lot of dead space. When I run into that I usually go get snacks or answer emails or something else because literally nothing happens. I was not fond of the 80's Mad Max. So needless to say when I watched this I was pleasantly surprised. First, is the engineers in production design. Yes, Engineers who created FrankenCars with assorted Auto parts. Impressive. This film won in the Production Design category and for good reason. Most of the stunts were live action. There is no category for stunts but bloody well should be.  Costumes won an Oscar which was well deserved. The issue I have with action films is that there is a specific language around the editing of these. We have seen it sooooo many times. I'm bored do something else and FFS lets not have an entire movie of chase scenes. Miller wanted to break away from that pattern and hired his wife Margaret Sixel to edit because she hadn't edited an action film before and wanted the film to look different. She had edited films about talking penguins and pigs but no action. Good call. It took her awhile because there was 400 plus hours of footage. It took months to watch all of it and take notes. But in the end it was not a generic action film. Sixel (cool name) won an Oscar for her editing. The film was nominated for Best Picture but lost to Spotlight. Miller was nominated for Best Director. but lost to the Revenant director. It actually won in many categories over Spotlight but lost Best Picture?? Hmmm. Anyway, this film is available on most streaming for rent.