Mad Max: Fury Road came out on Friday and of course I went and saw it.
If you remember an earlier article of mine I gave my opinion on what I thought about Mad Max and it has stuck with me. I loved Fury Road and it is easily my favorite Mad Max film to date. It kept all the elements of the previous movies and added more new fresh ones. If you read Robert Goldshaw’s ‘Things I Noticed Last Week’ article you would know that he actually didn’t enjoy the movie. I’m going to bring up a few of his points and tell you whether or not I agree with them.
He talked about the obvious lack of dialogue in the movie, which I can understand but let’s think back to Road Warrior for a second. Max only had about 17 lines! Yet we still understood his intentions. You see, I think that the dialogue isn’t necessary because you could tell by the way that the characters where interacting exactly what they intended. You could compare it to a silent film – no one says anything but emotions are still clearly seen. I think the fact that Hardy and Theron acted with little dialogue and still played excellent characters shows their talent as actors.
Goldshaw also notes how Mad Max is a B-movie so it should be over the top. I thought the man playing the guitar/flamethrower on top of a car topped with speakers and men painted white spraying chrome colored spray paint onto their mouths when they were about to die was over the top enough! I’m not saying Goldshaw is wrong, exactly, I just have a different opinion.
(At the time of writing this article I was under the impression that feminism was a negative word. What I was really talking about are radical feminists, the kind who put down men. Now I do consider myself a feminist by the classical definition, so keep that in mind.) I’d also like to touch on the ridiculous controversy going on with Fury Road right now. Some people are claiming that Mad Max is feminist propaganda. If that isn’t the most bullshit statement I’ve heard about a movie, I don’t know what is. Just because Max is accompanied by strong female characters along his journey, doesn’t make this feminist propaganda. No I don’t think so. Let’s not forget this movie was directed by George Miller who also directed the first three movies of Mad Max. It’s not like its some new director taking over the franchise. It just goes to show how much more negative people are acting, these days.
Joe Vargas from the Angry Joe Show brought up a good point on the subject. No one complained about Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, but having a strong female character is now a problem?!
I just don’t understand! But then again people will find anything in movies to pinpoint and be negative about.
There’s one more thing I’d like to talk about this week and that’s the Supergirl trailer.
The first time I saw this I literally couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing but went back and watched the whole thing so that I could give a proper opinion on it. What can I say but “why?” There was such an opportunity here! The intended audience for this show is obviously females. Obviously, I don’t have a problem with that, but if you’re going to make a new female dominated series don’t make it about a well-known superhero and drag it through the dirt.
First of all, Supergirl looks nothing like Supergirl. If you saw the SNL Black Widow skit, Supergirl is almost like that but in the form of a TV series. She literally tells people her identity in the first trailer released. They didn’t even wait for the show! She’s a rookie Hero and already people know who she is. There’s no way some villain wouldn’t come take advantage of her!
Also if you’re going to make a female superhero don’t make her some stereotypical girl. Make her someone you’d actually look up to. I can honestly say I’ve never been so disappointed to something superhero related in my life. I’m not going to say that the show is going to be terrible no matter what because it hasn’t come out yet but until then this is my opinion.
Well that’s all I’ve got this week. Maybe by next week Supergirl will be accused of feminist propaganda too.