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Posted: |
May 29, 2024 - 11:34 AM
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By: |
nuts_score
(Member)
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I'll ask for forgiveness in my attempt to move Furiosa discussion over to its own thread. It can get heated in porr Dragon53's posts just reporting the stats and the news so I figured that one place would be more appropriate for any thoughts and discussion on the new film in the Mad Max franchise.
It's exciting to talk about Furiosa. A film I greatly loved, enjoyed, and am happy and confident to defend in my appreciation. To start, the phrasing of Mad Max: Fury Road being "much of it was done practically" is amusing, at the most. By that counter Furiosa is indeed in the same ballpark. Much of it was done practically. They haven't released VFX breakdowns and behind the scenes footage for Furiosa so we don't have the exact measurements and history that is available for Fury Road. Fury Road has somewhere around 2700 individual shots. Over 2000 of the shots are aided by VFX. I would wager it would be similar for Furiosa. Furiosa is a quieter, more methodically paced movie when compared to Fury Road so many of the individual takes will be longer camera setups. Miller had talked in recent press about how much of the VFX work is just keeping the sky consistent shot to shot. So there is a lot of comp work that perhaps people find distracting. It's intentional. 50 years ago, filmmakers didn't have that luxury yet no one complained when skies didn't match between cuts. I wish today we had this same mentality and we're more interested in engaging with the story, the characters, the actual tenets of the filmmaking, and other things we seemed to have pretended to care about. Now all anyone seems to want to talk about is how the box office wasn't as great as it could've been (how many of our own favorite films follow this trajectory?) or how there are clearly visual effects on display. No shit. This is a Fantasy movie set in a violent futurescape. When was the last huge budget Fantasy film that didn't have identifiable VFX work? Y'all would be funny audience members in India or China, where their huge budget films are absolutely filled to the brim with imaginative and identifiable CGI. For my own complaints with VFX work, the only time I really thought to notice VFX was seeing two dogs jump off of a monster truck. I noticed it because the canine movement was clearly animated and also the moment probably would've killed an actual dog jumping from that height.
As for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, this is a stylish movie made by one of our last remaining cinematic painters. Its photorealism isn't the point. Make it be the point all you want, but at the end maybe the film wasn't made for you. To me, the point is the unreality. I'm escaping to this heavy metal and diesel Fantasy world. For some, perhaps it's time to move on to art films or smaller indie dramas for films with minimal VFX or maybe stay aligned with your Superhero fantasies or your diminished Star Wars returns. I cannot comprehend those that exclaim enthusiasm for prior Mad Max films yet aren't connecting with this one. This is very much made with the same vision as the earlier pictures.
George Miller spent about 2 decades making family films with experimental animation between the original Mad Max films and Witches of Eastwick and Lorenzo's Oil. For my approximation, both Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa serve as that natural point of progression now. Both still employ experimental (hell, controversial) animated visual effects to bring Miller's vision to the screen. This is to the detriment to many people stuck in their past memories that the earlier trilogy films were these perfect things without flaws. But the reason I personally love and am struck by those earlier films is that they too have their noticeable flaws and strings attached. It's the magic that counts.
Years ago, William Friedkin gave an interview with comedian Marc Maron on Maron's podcast. Maron came from this sense of entitlement to praise Friedkin's earlier work for its rawness and physical spirit seen in the daring and dangerous stunt work seen in films like The French Connection. Maron bemoaned the state of cinema currently that so little is done like that anymore and Friedkin chides him for even suggesting it should be that way. Maron asked if Friedkin would still make French Connection the same way today. To paraphrase Friedkin: "Hell no!" Friedkin talked about how, as a younger man given as much money as he could scrounge from any corner, he was putting everyone's life at risk at nearly every opportunity he could. He remarked that it was with great luck and blessing that his productions didn't kill countless people. Because it could've happened. He said that today, a filmmaker's toolkit gives them an opportunity to still fulfill their vision, gainfully employ talented artists, and minimize the risk for these kinds of high octane action and stunt works. Miller has talked about the same in recent press for Furiosa. For this generation of filmmakers, this new toolkit allows them to bring more life than ever before. And keep their cast and crew safe. If you aren't fond of their decisions for their commercial art, it's probably not for you anymore.
As for the film itself. I'm thrilled and I am satisfied. It's a struggle to call Furiosa "Fury Road 2" when the truth is more that Mad Max: Fury Road is "Furiosa Part 2." This is the story that is the table setting for Fury Road and in my opinion these films expand upon each other to make them respectively richer and better than they could be on first glance. And I found Mad Max: Fury Road to be a masterpiece back in 2015. A great compliment I can give to Furiosa is that it is not the same movie as Fury Road. It is more interested in building this character from the ground up and presenting a different kind of Wasteland protagonist compared to Max Rockatansky.
Miller describes Max as the reluctant hero, whereas Furiosa is the driven hero. At some point in classical mythmaking, the driven hero must rise above their own quest to aid those of lower status than themselves. The reluctant hero must set aside their disinterest in the quest in order to aid those of lower status than themselves as they find themselves involved with the quest despite their reservations. With the Furiosa character, we see this character encounter the same sort of hellish and existential turning point which Max encounters in the 1979 original. But her turning point puts her on a path which she promised to others. Max becomes more of a lonely drifter archetype. Not too dissimilar to the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's brilliant Western trilogy. This new film is more comparable to Once Upon a Time in the West. And for righteous reason: Miller is a huge fan of these films and Leone's artistry. Ironically enough, fans of OUaTitW enjoy its epic length giving them this rich time to spend on this quest of vengeance. It had its detractors, however. Not much different than Furiosa, it seems. I don't bemoan those who find Furiosa too long. Patience is a virtue and we all want things to be an ideal length to accompany our lives. I had no issue with Furiosa's length. It's really nothing compared to most bloated Superhero pictures of this age and I greatly enjoy the time spent in this Fantasy world of the Wasteland.
From the opening moments of Furiosa, I am treated to a marvelous stop-start motorbike chase that visually teaches you so much about this world. How you have to manage resources; how you have to outwit those you pursue or those that pursue you; and how survival is only guaranteed to the lucky. The actress portraying Furiosa's mother delivers a lightning bolt of a near-silent performance in those opening 10 minutes and from there I was hooked.
We talk about this movie overextending some kind of deep lore about the Wasteland but does it really waste your time with exposition? No. The lead character has as much to say as Max has to say in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior or Mad Max: Fury Road. She is a woman of action. She doesn't need words, she needs results. In the finale, Furiosa is given her ability to speak because of her lifetime of pain and suffering due to the violent nature of one person who caused likely decades of torment and destruction in her life and the world at large. She's earned her right to dress him down. It was with my great appreciation that this finale was about two people reconciling with revenge rather than having a fist battle.
I struggle comparing this film to Beyond Thunderdome when the plot structure more resembles the 1979 original film by way of The Road Warrior. In fact this movie shares a lot of plot DNA with Mad Max 2, insofar as it is very focused on the politics of those that govern the Wasteland and the necessary survivalist actions of those heroes like Max or Furiosa. To bring it back to Leone, Max is the Man With No Name and Furiosa is Harmonica. This film does not devolve into the more egregious post-Return of the Jedi goofiness of Beyond Thunderdome. It manages to keep its gritty and determined tone throughout. I just cannot comprehend a comparison to Beyond Thunderdome aside from being more conservative with its action sequences. But even then this new film's sequences rival Fury Road, which is two extended action sequences spread over a simpler narrative in comparison.
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Posted: |
May 30, 2024 - 6:02 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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I really, really wanted to like this film, as I'm such a big fan of FURY ROAD (and the Mad Max saga as such). However, despite some great elements, it was overall disappointing. I shared this (google translated) review in another thread, but here it is again, for anyone interested, with the particular qualms I had:
https://montages-no.translate.goog/2024/05/furiosa-a-mad-max-saga-mangler-fres-og-fart/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp
agreed, the points about the visually clean, digital look are right on the money. It is surprisingly disappointing, it is like Miller lost his way with this somehow, even though it is clearly his invention from the start. Technology can be a complete derailment for film makers like Miller, just like it was for George Lucas. They start to see everything that they can do with digital tools and stop to really ask if they should, and pretty soon they have gone so very far from the original path of their art that the whole invention is perverted into something of an awkward amalgamation, like this is. It is strange smashing of the original gritty aspects (which is very little here) and a whole lot of digital cleanups and sweetening and CGI drop-ins and warehouse-studio work throughout most of the film. He really let the tools take over most of the film, quite a shame.
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Poorly reviewed movies still win at the box office.
Nearly the entire Transformers franchise...
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