Before I begin with my own opinion on this film, I’d like to give you some facts. Mad Max has a rating of 97% on rotten tomatoes and 89% on Metacritic. Thus far it has grossed $376.7 million, however is it really all that good?
I know there was a lot of anticipation behind this film, especially with Tom Hardy, Rosie Huntington-Whitely and Nicholas Hoult cast as several of our heroes. But when you break down the bear bones of this film all you find is that it is just one long car chase and after an hour it just gets so repetetive and boring.
Whats more is it bears a striking resemblance to Waterworld, a high budget film in 1995 with Kevin Costner that tanked at the box office and was globally panned by critics. This may sound wierd but take a moment and think, Both are post apocalyptic films with a high amount of attention placed on small insignificant details. In other words, the film just shows you stuff happening.
With Waterworld, you see the intricacies of the gears and pulleys that Costner painstakingly set up. With Mad Max its the chain system that lowers the vehicles to the ground and the unusual way they extract milk. Really? Have they never heard of leaving things to the imagination?
On top of this, you have the reluctant hero who is trying to save a group of women from ravenous gangs/pirates. For the entire film they are chased until the leaders are killed. Finally after all is said and done, they have found their safe refuge and the secondary characters can finally live in peace with the hero deciding he wants to go back out to their wasteland. Because that’s his home and that’s what they do.
Watch both films yourself, and you’ll see what I mean. If you don’t agree by all means leave a comment. I’m not saying that Fury Road copied Waterworld because Mad Max is the older franchise. I’m just pointing out a remarkable resemblance.
A question we have to ask ourselves is why why did one do so much better than the other. What’s more I detested Fury Road but loved Waterworld and I struggle to see the reasoning. If I’m perfectly honest with you, I cant give you an answer to this question. All I can say is that many critics now would recommend Waterworld. So it could just be a shift in taste of films that has left Waterworld with the broken end of the stick.
#Peace.Love.MadMax
