Seething, Boiling, Burning, Hysterical! (Mad Max: Fury Road, With Spoilers Galore)

So, yesterday, I had the chance to see Mad Max: Fury Road.

Prior to that, I had heard that there was a bit of uproar surrounding the movie.

So, for background, I own the original three Mad Max movies, and have watched them many times. These are films I grew up with, a franchise for which I hold a deep, abiding affection.

Accordingly, I was going to see this movie whether or not there was controversy.

Now, I said in my spoiler-free review of the movie that it was perhaps the best action movie I've ever seen, and I will stand by that.

I talked about pacing, cinematography, scripting, and all of those things are true and relevant.

But I didn't talk about anything that would give away the storyline. I'm going to do that, extensively,  not only for Fury Road but for the entire series here, so if you haven't seen it, stop now and go somewhere else.

So.

After watching Fury Road, I was even more mystified by the reports of people being upset about the movie.

Upon finding out it was a small but apparently vocal men's rights group, I was even more mystified. Then I actually read what they were complaining about, and then I was actually angry.

You douchebags, you haven't even seen the other movies! Or you didn't bother paying attention, either way.

So let me clear things up in context of reviewing the movie.

This group's complaints, as a whole, revolve around the fact that Max Rockatansky is not the main character of the movie. He is the viewpoint character, true, and his is the narrative voice relating the story, but he is not the prime driver of the action; that honor belongs to Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron.

How dare George Miller write a sequel in which there is a strong female lead! This is MAD MAX, his name's right on it!

How dare they make a movie where Max shares the title card with a person with a vagina!

Let me first begin by saying that "cars exploding are only cool when there are only dudes in them" is a ridiculous, stupid statement.

Cars exploding are always cool unless YOU'RE in them.

It has nothing to do with plumbing and everything to do with explosions.

Especially since George Miller has always focused on practical effects wherever possible, using legions of stuntmen (and women) and spending the massive majority of the film's budget on 150 post-apocalyptic dieselpunk nightmare cars that all actually work.

This group of idiots was especially incensed by the fact that at one point, Furiosa yells at Max, something that is apparently on a par with anal rape of a chicken in Times Square for offense value; you just don't yell at MAD GODDAMN MAX.

So, returning to my original point: you just haven't actually watched the rest of the series, have you?

Mad Max is an everyman. In the first movie, he is explicitly offered the hero role by his boss, MFP captain "Fifi" Macaffee, and explicitly turns it down. He's not an anti-hero; he simply rejects the role of hero entirely.

In the eponymous movie, Max is brought into opposition to a sadistic, drug-crazed biker gang run by a lunatic known as the Toecutter (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who also plays Immortan Joe, the main antagonist in Fury Road.) The true driver of the action in the movie is clearly Toecutter; Max's actions are entirely reactive.

And this brings me to my several points about Max.

Max is a cipher. As the viewpoint character and narrative voice of all four movies (with the exception of a small voiceover at the tail end of each movie,) he is essentially a passive character. He acts, but he either acts in response to someone else, or in furtherance of someone else's plans; his own agency in the movies is very subdued. Max exists in a kind of twilight world of survival, and Fury Road spells this out in a way the earlier movies didn't.

Now, those of you who have watched these movies may be scratching your heads a bit, at this point, but think.

The only reason Max took direct action against Toecutter's gang is that they killed his family. If they had simply ridden on, he wouldn't have pursued them; despite his friends' anger at seeing Johnny the Boy released from jail, Max was the voice of calm, the voice of reason and restraint, right up until Toecutter killed Jessie and Sprog.

At that point, Max kills Bubba Zanetti, Toecutter, and Johnny the Boy, and runs several other members of the gang off a bridge, and then disappears into the wasteland.

But Max doesn't actively pursue the gang, doesn't act in any way heroic; he simply responds with violence to the deaths of his family.

Move forward to The Road Warrior, and Max is existing as a scavenger in the desert; he's not a hero, or a wandering vigilante, he's a guilt-wracked, hollow shell of a man who simply exists.

He's scavenging, and staying clear of the skirmish, as he watches an attempt at escape by the crew of a besieged oil refinery by the forces of The Humungus; he only steps in to rescue one of the survivors as a means of trading for a tank of gas.

Once inside the compound, the survivor dies, and the leader of the compound's forces, Pappagallo, reneges on the deal; Max offers to retrieve a big rig he saw abandoned on the road at the beginning of the movie in exchange for fuel.

He retrieves the rig, then attempts to escape, and is caught and nearly killed; he is rescued on the way back to the refinery by the Gyro Pilot, and once in the compound agrees to drive the rig as it is the only way for him to escape the forces of The Humungus.

The Humungus and his forces pursue the rig, allowing the rest of the refinery personnel to escape in a caravan. After the rig's defenders are killed, Max is able to destroy the Humungus's vehicle, but this overturns the rig, at which point it becomes clear that the entire run was a sham; the rig is filled with sand, not oil, and Max was strictly an unknowing decoy. Max wanders off into the desert.

In Beyond Thunderdome, the entire first half of the movie is orchestrated by Tina Turner's Aunty Entity character; once again promising Max fuel and resupply in exchange for a task, this time killing off a political rival in single combat. Max agrees, but once he actually confronts Master and Blaster, he realizes that Blaster is developmentally retarded and not responsible, and refuses to kill him, resulting in banishment from Bartertown by Aunty Entity.

Max then encounters a group of lost children, stranded by a plane crash, and attempts to lead them to safety, but is forced to steal vehicles from Bartertown to do so; he runs interference to allow the children to escape, and at the end of the story wanders again into the desert, once again alone, after Aunty Entity - victorious - allows him to live.

Which is the whole point. At what point, in any of that, is Max the primary driver of the story? He is the window through which the audience experiences the story, clearly, but at no point is he the primary actor; his exercise of agency, throughout the series, is only to ensure his own survival.

As Fury Road begins, Max is wandering the desert as a scavenger, haunted by his past - stop me if you've heard this - and is captured by the forces of Immortan Joe, a despot who rules The Citadel, the only source of water for miles around. Immortan Joe has created a pseudoreligious cult called the Warboys, all of whom have been taught that Immortan Joe is the arbiter of the afterlife, and the guardian of the gates of Valhalla.

Joe happens to have a harem - the Wives - who are unwilling to continue to exist as objects.

Which brings us to Furiosa.

Imperator Furiosa is Joe's most trusted lieutenant, and she is entrusted with the task of taking a tanker truck to a nearby refinery for refueling and supplies. In fact, this is a ruse on her part; her intent is to smuggle the Wives out using the rig, and once Joe figures out the trick, he rouses the entire army of the Citadel in pursuit. Max is carried along, literally chained to a car, as he is being used as a blood donor for a Warboy named Nux.

As Furiosa's run continues, the escort forces become suspicious, and then attack her, and the pursuit forces catch up enough to engage in combat; Max is freed when Nux's vehicle is destroyed in an attempt to stop the rig. Max then hijacks the rig, but as the pursuit forces catch up, he joins forces with Furiosa, supporting her in the escape attempt.

Nux also eventually joins with Max and Furiosa, after seeing how cavalierly his efforts are dismissed by Immortan Joe, and how the Wives react to him and to Max.

The story turns when Furiosa finally makes contact with the forces guarding the place she had planned to use as a safe haven, only to find that the haven itself has been destroyed, and only a few warriors remain; at that point, Max makes his first actual plan of the entire series, convincing Furiosa that it's possible to block off the Warboys from returning to The Citadel long enough for Furiosa to actually take it over; they return to The Citadel by reversing the chase right back through Joe's forces, ultimately succeeding in returning to The Citadel; Max then disappears into the desert again.

In Mad Max, the primary narrative driver is Toecutter.

In The Road Warrior, the primary narrative driver is Pappagallo.

In Beyond Thunderdome, the primary narrative driver is Aunty Entity.

In Fury Road, the primary narrative driver is Furiosa.

Notice something in common?

Max isn't the primary actor in any of them.

Sure, his name's on the door, but that's because he's telling the story; these are things that happened to him, but he's not the motivating force behind any of those stories. In that way, Miller is able to draw in the audience, letting them identify with this ragged, desperate survivor, who is unable to control the events around him, and merely clings to survival when nothing else matters.

So, in fifty percent of the Mad Max films, the primary narrative driver is a villain.

In fifty percent of the Mad Max films, the primary narrative driver is a woman.

Why are we suddenly pissed about this?

I can tell you why.

It's because Fury Road is a much, much better movie than the ones that went before.

It's better scripted, tighter, better paced; it's Mad Max stripped to its bare essentials and painted chrome.

The script draws you in; the characters each experience noticeable growth, in particular Max, Furiosa, and Nux; you invest in these characters, in their situation, in their hopes; the moment when Furiosa discovers her long-lost haven is gone forever is a crushing blow, especially since Miller drove the narrative right past the location of the fallen haven without taking particular note of it.

That past is gone so thoroughly that you drove right through the middle of it without ever noticing, Furiosa.

Do you feel that?

That's pain.

That's loss.

That's despair.

And that's the moment - the first time in the series, really - when Max himself steps forward as a driver of the narrative, when he becomes more than a passenger, more than a bystander, more than only a survivor.

That's redemption.

That's hope.

What about that do you find to be negative?

You're mad because a girl yells at Max?

You didn't get mad when a girl yelled at Max in The Road Warrior, did you.

You didn't get mad when a girl yelled at Max in Beyond Thunderdome, did you.

So what's different now?

Furiosa is the difference.

From start to finish, it's really her movie, and she sells it completely, believably, and you invest in her, in her hopes and her success, because of it.

You care about her.

Max is the shell you use to ride along with her.

And for the first time in the series, Max lets you be more than a passenger.

There is nothing wrong with this movie, and everything right with it. I'm not going to try to deconstruct tropes, or break down gender roles, or talk about how the movie itself uses the story as a vehicle for reversing everyone's expectations...

...Wait, at least for a bit, I will.

You invest in this movie.

It's that moment when Splendid goes under the wheels of Immortan Joe's car, and you see the fury and heartbreak as he carries her body out of the wreckage. It's so, so much worse, knowing that he cares as much as he knows how to.

It's that moment when Rictus stands up, with tears in his eyes, and announces to the waiting Warboys that he had a baby brother. One perfect in every respect.

It's the moment when Nux realizes his only way to redemption is death. "Witness."

It's the moment when Furiosa knows her past is lost.

It's the moment when...

...you know that even if they're wrong, even if they're crazy, there's no-one in this movie who doesn't care.

And that makes you buy into it.

That makes YOU care.

That's a level of heart rarely seen in any movie, much less in an action movie; much less in a two-hour car chase.

I know why those peabrains are protesting the movie, and it has nothing to do with it being bad.

It has to do with it being fucking artwork. And making you care.

I can't wait to see what George Miller does next.