The Cinematic Haters Ball: Mad Max: Fury Road

-->

Listen, I know how things become incredibly popular. First, some idiots get together and start saying something’s really cool and then everyone jumps on that wagon because we’re sick, lonely creatures obsessed with fitting in and no one wants to be left out. That’s how awful wastes of time like The Cabin in the Woods become “genius” movies and the reason why someone like Stephenie Meyer ends up being one of the most successful authors in history.  It’s also how Mad Max: Fury Road ends up being called the best fucking movie since the coalescing of stardust.

Yeah, I sat down and watched the movie. As usual, the overhypers had me expecting a cinematic experience that would make me forget all previous cinematic experiences. In the end, while fast and entertaining, I ended up watching a film full of weird cars and a plot thinner than rolling paper. Basically, a renegade driver tries to save the shampoo commercial models a bad guy on life support keeps in his cave castle for reproductive purposes. It also has the guy from Powder playing a few weak metal riffs on a guitar that’s also a flamethrower, but whatever.

Mad Max: Fury Road is far from boring, but there are so many mistakes and inconsistencies that anyone calling this movie “the best movie ever” deserves a slow, painful death. Let me break down some of them in order to illuminate your Adam-Sandler-loving ass:

1.     These motherfuckers drive for a million miles and we don’t see a single shrub or tree. Then their truck gets stuck in the mud and the last tree on earth is a few feet away and ready to save the day. Get outta here with that bullshit.

2.     Just like there is no flora, there is no fauna. The world is a desert. However, after an explosion, we see some birds. Please refer to the last sentence in the previous entry.

3.     I used to help a neighbor of mine with his cars back in the day. We had to use a special soap made with all kinds of chemicals and sand to get the grease off our fingers. In this movie, Furiosa paints her entire forehead twice with a fingertip full of grease and then has a clean-ish face next morning.

4.     Just like that disappearing grease bullshit, Powder’s cousin paints his mouth and teeth with silver spray paint twice, and that also magically disappears. 

5.     Are we supposed to think that you can climb into the motor of a moving truck, tie a fucking hose, and everything is fine for another million miles?

6.     Powder’s cousin is apparently dying at the beginning of the movie, but then he turns into a hero, runs back and forth through the desert, and never seems to be in pain.

7.     From standing up and jumping around on moving vehicles to Cirque du Soleil employees doing weird things on moving poles attached to cars, this movie is designed to make anyone remotely familiar with the laws of physics or the concept of inertia cry their eyes out.

8.     The movie is titled Mad Max: Fury Road and Charlize Theron’s character is furious…and her name is Furiosa. How long did it take y’all to come up with that one?

9.     People in this movie talk like most millenials spell on Twitter.

10. I thought the movie had a bit of a female empowerment kinda thing going, which was great, but y’all had to put the shampoo models in a wet t-shirt scene in the middle of the desert, didn’t you, you dirty animals?

11. There was a serious lack of busted tires in this movie. Apparently any juiced old truck can win the Dakar rally.

12. How did the removable arm with no cables work? If it was telepathically operated and they didn’t tell us, they suck.

13. Did most critics just kinda missed the fact that this film is a two-hour long chase and not much more? Did the cool touches the director threw in there made everyone skip over the fact that there’s basically one emotional character and the rest are just folks trying to escape? Of everything folks believe in across the globe, are we supposed to just accept that only Norse mythology survived the apocalypse and every white, bald dude dreams of Valhalla? You guys make me want to punch babies in the face.

14. If they have the technology to keep people alive and make cars immortal, why the fuck are they running around with guns that look like they were pulled out of a bad steampunk novel?

15. The truck is full of “guzzline,” but Max can clean his face with milk because fuck everything and fuck lazy viewers, right? Hooray for Hollywood! I guess it works because he grabs a red container, walks 27 miles, sets off an explosion, and comes back, and all of that takes him about 11 seconds.

Okay, I won’t waste any more time picking this thing apart. I’m done. This is fine entertainment if you don’t want to overanalyze what you’re watching, but its success is less due to its merits and more due to the fact that we’re used to Hollywood shitting in our mouths and then asking us to applaud what they just did. Call me Furioso. Have a horrible day.