Saw the Mad Max last Sunday night. It is worth the price of admission. An almost non-stop action roller coaster with incredible effects. As with all of the Max's the story is not very complicated (almost a little stupid) but in the end, I really didn't mind. It probably should have been called "Road Warrior - Re-Imagined"

The biggest problem I had with it, is that the lead character didn't have much of one. Unlike Gibson's Max, Hardy was given a poor script and in my opinion, poor direction as I know the guy can act. There is very little to like about him, I don't know if we should call him Mad Max or just simply Disengaged Max or maybe Apathy Max.

I'm on the fence about seeing this now or just waiting for DVD. I'm sure it looks good on the bigger screen, but I feel that I've seen it before.

As I recall the original Mad Max was kind of talky and cheap looking and only got good after a long while. However I thought the Road Warrior was a terrific movie. Admittedly I have not seen either one in a few years, but the fact that I remember RW so fondly makes me less interested in seeing this one.

As for Hardy, he's a good actor and has the physical presence for this type of role. Your opinion does match what I have read about this film though. Everyone seems to write that it's Charlize Theron's movie and she might be nominated for an Oscar. That would be impressive for an action movie.

Can't say I saw any Oscar nominated performances but certainly Charlize had a much fuller character. Then again, I have seen the academy dump the statue for less. :-)

I would recommend theater viewing if for nothing else the spectacle of it. George Miller really did do an incredible job in creating his vision of this post apocalyptic wasteland. I think much will be lost in the translation to smaller screens.

Yeah, the original Max was a bit of a snore by modern comparison. But it was the most profitable movie (400k budget = 100mil world box office) for roughly 20 years until the Blair Witch Project was released. (some useless Hollywood history for ya!)

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Yeah, the original Max was a bit of a snore by modern comparison. But it was the most profitable movie (400k budget = 100mil world box office) for roughly 20 years until the Blair Witch Project was released. (some useless Hollywood history for ya!)

There have been some very good low budgeted movies, but just mentioning the Blair Witch Project makes my stomach turn. I saw it on video and what a piece of ****. Yet it made all that money and had a generation of filmmakers running around with shaky hand held cameras recording non-actors with no scripted dialogue, but all hoping to make a fortune.

Thank God Cloverfield bombed in it's attempt to take the hand held to main stream movies and most of the rest went straight to DVD.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

Saw this movie last night. I was expecting a reboot of the original Road Warrior film, but it was (thankfully) not just a rehashed story. My opinion on it is mixed. While the movie goes pretty much full blast for the whole feature, it basically felt like one big car chase by the end. The main story was not even remotely complicated, and was actually a little strange in some aspects. I agree with earlier posts about Tom Hardy. His role in this movie almost felt like an afterthought. Charlize Theron was good, but I don't know if her acting in this film deserves an Oscar or not. I almost found myself waiting for Tina Turner to show up in the film at one point. For me, the best character was the young man who came along with Max on the big rig. At least he had some character development, which is more than you can say about almost everyone in the film (Theron's character excluded).

There are a few nods to the old Mel Gibson films, but this one definitely stands on its own. While it was okay, I probably should have waited for it on DVD or Netflix. Overall, I give it a B minus.

I did just realize that the main antagonist "Immortan Joe" was the same actor who played Toecutter in the original Mad Max.

@Raven....absolutely! Although some (very few) have been done with a little bit of imagination, I am always asking myself how the **** they were holding a camera in that scene. :-)

I saw it right after "Avengers 2" which was a darker colored film, and wow, "Mad Max" was like Day-Glo in comparison. The color was amazing.