He wanders the desert with the simple goal of self-survival and carries no agenda or allegiance to anyone or anything but himself.Ĭornered, Max is captured by the marauding War Boys of the local tyrant King Immortan Joe (played behind heavy makeup by Hugo Keays-Byrne, the same man who played the original 'Toecutter' villain in 1979). Resident movie tough guy and man-of-few-words Tom Hardy takes over for Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a former cop haunted by the loss of his family. Sorry, but even against a stellar 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, some of us need a little plot.Īussie writer and director George Miller returns to the post-apocalyptic franchise he started over 35 years ago with 1979's 'Mad Max.' This new film is somewhere between a deep sequel and a modern reboot back to the Wasteland.

As incredible in stunt work and thrills as 'Mad Max: Fury Road' is, it is missing too much of that heft to matter beyond being really cool to watch. The really good mindless action movies (think 'Die Hard') offer just enough heft of a compelling story to make the action matter and resonate beyond just superficial coolness. The quality speaks to the action and the impact speaks to the story being sewn along the way, even if it's secondary. However, what separates the trash from the treasure is quality and impact. Across that range from top to bottom, action is first and plot is second. Mindless action has its range from the trash of Michael Bay to the treasure of the 'Fast and Furious' franchise. Us movie critics, amateur or professional, can only try to project a movie's appeal to our fellow audience, In the end, we are only one opinion of many and we too have our triggers, bias, and tendencies.įor this writer, 'Mad Max: Fury Road' is a daunting challenge for this website's definition of mindless action as a movie genre.

We could go all day and bring in more idioms that involve cups of tea, bandwagons, book cover judgment, or the use of fences as seating options. The niche of adamant lovers of a film are constantly matched by its fair share of haters with a measured middle ground in between that determines whether the final scale is balanced towards a majority like or dislike. The idiom has use in every film genre, from tearjerker romances to blood curdling horror. The often repeated and frequently modified idiom 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' applies so well to the different attitudes, tastes, favorites, kinks, and quirks of our enormously varied movie-going audience, both here and abroad.

Mad max fury road rating