Saw FURIOSA last week on an Imax screen.\u00a0\u00a0 The latest Mad Max movie… though, oddly, without Mad Max.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t think there’s a better action director in the field than George Miller.\u00a0\u00a0 The\u00a0 fights in FURIOSA are spectacular, especially on Imax.<\/p>\n
I saw my first Mad Max film back in 1981.\u00a0\u00a0 That was ROAD WARRIOR, the second in the series (did not catch the first one until a few years later — I am not even sure it was ever released in Santa Fe).\u00a0\u00a0 The chase sequence blew me away.\u00a0\u00a0 The best ever put to film, I thought.\u00a0\u00a0 So good that I dragged Roger Zelazny out to see it a few days later, to show him what\u00a0 the film version of DAMNATION ALLEY should have l0oked like.. and could<\/em> <\/strong>have looked like, if they had hired the right director.\u00a0 And they almost did, as it happens.\u00a0\u00a0 But that’s another story.<\/p>\n I would still rank ROAD WARRIOR’s climactic action chase as one of the best in movie history, especially since it was all practical, amazing real world stuntwork and not the sort of SFX and AI that dominates so many movies currently.\u00a0\u00a0 George Miller keeps trying to top himself.\u00a0\u00a0 BEYOND THUNDERDOME had some great action too, with the train chase… and the fight in the Thunderdome, though that was a different sort of animal.\u00a0\u00a0 After that there was a long hiatus before FURY ROAD came along, with a different Max and several <\/em><\/strong>huge chase scenes.\u00a0\u00a0 You can make a case for that one being bolder and bigger than any that had come before, though on balance I still liked ROAD WARRIOR more.<\/p>\n With FURIOSA, though, there’s no doubt.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, Miller had a much bigger budget this time.\u00a0\u00a0 I think the original MAD MAX was made with the loose change he found in his couch pillows.\u00a0 FURIOSA probably cost more than the first four Max movies put together.\u00a0\u00a0 Given its structure, it could just as easily been five features, or maybe three seasons of a television series.\u00a0\u00a0 I liked Anya Taylor Joy, who played Furiosa this time around.\u00a0 The girl who played Furiosa as a child was good as well.\u00a0 I liked Tom Burke (Praetorian Jack) and Chris Hemsworth as Dementus too… and the Citadel is a cool set, though it was used with more impact in FURY ROAD.<\/p>\n Overall, though, ROAD WARRIOR is still my favorite Mad Max movie.\u00a0 FURIOSA and FURY ROAD both had their merits, but I’d still rank them below the second and third Mel Gibson films.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The new ones are bigger and more expensive, and the action scenes are huge… but the worldbuilding, the secondary characters, and the stories <\/em><\/strong>cannot compare.<\/p>\n And I miss the epilogues.\u00a0 The closing scenes of both ROAD WARRIOR and BEYOND\u00a0 THUNDERDOME are beautifully written, and make me choke up whenever I see them.<\/p>\n