this post made me and my gf go back and watch the oscar-winning movie happy feet. i looked up the director, george miller, and found out happy feet is only his SECOND most profitable franchise. he is best known as the director of all the mad max films.
to present some information for those who have not seen happy feet: the penguins are animated, but the few humans in the film are live-action. the film has two main messages: accept those who are different than you, and a pro-environmentalism message about stopping ocean pollution and overfishing. spoilers for this 13-year-old movie, but it ends with the main character managing to get the humans to stop polluting and overfishing through the power of dance. meanwhile, mad max is a postapocalyptic series.
so… i propose a theory. happy feet and mad max take place in the same universe, but in different timelines. in the good timeline (the happy feet canon), mumble convinces the humans to stop destroying the earth using the power of dance. this leads into happy feet 2. in the bad timeline (the mad max canon), mumble fails to convince the humans. the penguin colony dies out, humans destroy the earth, and the mad max movies happen a few thousand years after happy feet 1.
So what’s to be said about Mad Max. You know the backstory – rogue wanderer of the wastelands trying to do things. All caught up? Good. So forget everything you remember about the previous 3 films except Tina Turner’s fabulousness, and go into this one with eyes wide open. This is a different Max from George Miller; this Max (Tom…
Cannot believe this is what Miller has been holding in all these years.
George Miller unleashes the full extent of his imagination in a carefully balanced “seesaw” of a movie. The film rips through the senses in its almost poetic simplicity with structure and incredibly long action sequences that pause only for very brief moments to increase the stakes of the film and the plight of its characters. Take all the extreme outlandish elements of the 3 previous films and take out the over acting and apply modern day tech and you get a perfected vision of what Miller originally wanted to portray and patiently waded through such films like Happy Feet and you (the audience) finally get what I can only say is an incredibly satisfying “high octane” thriller that puts the previous 3 cult hits to shame.
It is a post-apocalyptic future; how far from now? I don’t know. The world as we know it, or as much of it that Miller lets us see is reduced to desert wasteland divided by warring factions. Our hero Max is captured and dragged into a place known as “The Citadel” powered by the slave labor of many all to serve the purpose of one, Immortan Joe, of whom controls the most valuable assets known to man, water and gas. Joe lives similarly to that of a Pharaoh and only keeps his most trusted around him as his cabinet; all of them are members of his family. Max is kept alive to donate his blood to Joe’s warriors known as the “War Boys.” Much like a crazed despot Joe keeps a harem with 5 beautiful women of who appear flawless in an otherwise desolate landscape to mother his children. One of his own trusted officers named Furiosa runs off with the 5 wives to return to her homeland.
Mad Max: Fury Road has razor sharp action sequences powered by Miller’s crazy imagination as people fearlessly leap from vehicle to vehicle in high speed pursuits through the desert. The structure of the film is on point as the War Boys all have their roles to play; notable roles being that of the electric guitar player that’s tied to a giant rig to simply play power riffs to empower the war boys and to set the tone of things to come, much like drummer boys and buglers of the past. There are also crazed maniacal roles called “Polecats” who dangle on long poles in Buster Keaton-esque fashion as they swing from the top of poles from dune buggies to board other vehicles in acrobatic fashion.
I had heard in an interview that George Miller employed the consultation of the author of the Vagina Monologues, of whom have worked with victims of sexual abuse to create the demeanor and disposition of the 5 wives in this film. All of the actresses did a wonderful job portraying distrustful and distant visages as well as strong courageous roles when the occasion called for it.
Miller portrays all the wonders of womanhood as we see the 5 wives first appear in almost mirage like sequence in which their limber bodies are being bathed upon a desert landscape covered only in the thinnest of cloths — but throughout the film we see that although they appear to be delicate creatures they fare the perils of this savage wasteland. Lead by one of Charlize Theron’s more memorable roles as she brings an immeasurable sense of ferocity to the movie. Whether she plays an ambitious tycoon or a depressed wife she stays true to her roles and does great justice to the films she stars in by staying true to the aesthetics as she voluntarily buzzed her head for this role.
Although the dialogue is sparse, Miller is able to paint an effective picture using modern day technology to create viscreal imagery powered by knee jerk camera movements to accentuate the disjunctive nature of his savage imagination. The character development is created solely through the different environments in which the characters came, be it the underground grungey conditions of the war boys, to the beautiful paradise in the center of an otherwise claustrophobic and dry landscape made for Immortan Joe’s 5 wives — George Miller effectively brings together the different walks of life to fight for a common cause.
Miller blew my mind when I was younger and happened to stumble upon The Road Warrior on a random weekend afternoon on television wherein I learned how suspenseful a scene can be as I saw Mel Gibson desperately try to grab a hold of a shotgun shell while maintaining control of his vehicle during the middle of a chase, and blew me away again with the incredible use of CG infused backdrops and vivid color to breathe new life to his career defining franchise.
This is a revamp, but can also be a continuation in the franchise as it can be viewed as Max traversing the wasteland and stumbling upon random scenarios in which he becomes the reluctant hero as he searches for redemption.
This week on FFR, we’re casting a spell with the amazing women of The Witches of Eastwick! Join us as we talk about the film’s decidedly 80s gender and sexual politics, its all-out strangeness, and Jack Nicholson’s scenery-chewing performance. Listen now
Despite it being 30 years since the release of Beyond Thunderdome – the third, mediocre instalment in the Mad Max saga, George Miller’s franchise remains iconic and still capable in 2015 of generating rabid passion, gigantic anticipation and millions of dollars from films geeks and action junkies alike. It’s ironic that the Tina Turner/Mel Gibson blockbuster was such a misfire because (not…
