Mad Max

Man oh man...

Where to start?

I guess I'll start with why I decided to do a retro review on this "classic" (and dear Lord do I use that term loosely). San Diego Comic Con finished up a couple weeks ago and easily the most impressive footage from it (that was actually released to the public) was the gritty, electric trailer for next year's Mad Max: Fury Road. It immediately piqued my interest in a film series that I always knew about, but never had much ambition to see.

So, I was perusing Netflix the other night and taking a break from catching up on the excellent Orange is the New Black (which is surprisingly not just for women, much to my delight!) and I saw Mad Max and decided to take the 88 minute plunge.

Now...I had some knowledge about the series. I knew that it was based in the Outback of Australia, a country near and dear to my heart, that it was a dystopian action thriller with visceral car chases, and that it was uber successful at the box office upon its release. In summation, I was expecting something pretty great that would entertain.

Nope.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone who adores the film, but it's terrible. Or maybe I should rephrase that: it's a terrible film if you are watching it for the first time in 2014. It's truly a sign of how far movies have come.

Supposed to be scary but yet...they look like a completely average
bike gang

I know, I know. Some of you may be scrolling to the comments section to burn me right now, or are unsubscribing as we speak, but if you are still reading just hear me out. My prediction is that the success of Mad Max back in the day was due to a couple things. First off, the sex appeal of a young, Australian-accented Mel Gibson probably put a lot of butts in seats. Secondly, the film made strides forward in how car chases were filmed with its wider lens and innovative camera angles. It certainly does those well. So, I'm guessing that a decent portion of those two things (that audiences had never seen before, mind you) generated a lot of buzz. But in 2014, with films being as impressive as they are these days, this film just has far too many faults for me to be blinded by the attached "cult classic" status.

"I bet that they are going to cut away from this
scene right in the middle of my sent --"

For starters, it's a mess of a film. The editing is some of the worst I have ever seen (outside of the car chases of course) and for as simple as the story was, I could barely tell you what was going on. This improves slightly by the time the film ends but those first 60 minutes? Painful. On top of that, everyone's acting is rather stiff, including Gibson's, and there is just an air of corniness to the whole proceedings. At one point a character (the villain, whatever the hell his name was) swipes his hands and they dub it with a "whoosh" sound effect. Suffice it to say I laughed. Out loud. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of the issues with the film can be attributed to the extremely low budget that it was created with. All things considered, that aspect is pretty impressive given how much money it went on to make. But as it was watched by someone like myself who is spoiled by big budgets, this low budget film, that I was supposed to be taking somewhat seriously, was almost a bit pathetic. It's not even really that the film was old (i.e. I adored The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), it's just that all of the budget cuts are so obvious. Need to cut down on the time of the film to save money? Let's have some horrendously choppy editing. Or let's make it a "dystopian future" complete with shops, people in the background, and literally not a shred of evidence that this is in the future OR even a dystopian one? Or let's have repetitive chases where a bad guy is going really fast, the good guy catches up, and then runs him off the road?

See you in the sequel! If I watch it...

The film does have some bright spots, such as the car chases and the final 30 minutes make a little more sense than the rest of the film. As I stated earlier, seeing a young Mel Gibson has a certain charm to it as does knowing that some of the car scenes are the first of their kind. But other than that, I think those that love the film are holding on to some major movie nostalgia. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that (Lord knows I'll be doing it in my later years), but the sad truth remains:

Mad Max is not a film that ages well. At all.

I've been told the sequels are infinitely better (are they? leave me a comment in the section below) so maybe I will get around to them by the time the Tom Hardy sequel comes out. But for now, the Mad Max franchise has left an awfully bad taste in my mouth.

CONS:

• Some truly horrendous editing. I don't know if this was directly affected by the low budget, but a story this simple should not be this hard to follow. Scenes need some more time to simmer and character names need to be better connected to their on-screen image
• This is a dystopian future? Could have fooled me. The difference between the newest trailer and this film are night and day
• Repetitive car chases
• Stale acting all around
• The low budget shows in almost every scene
• Spends too much getting to the meat of the story
• Some laughable sound editing
• Did I miss something? Or is it common knowledge that this film is bad?

PROS:

• The Australian Outback is gorgeous. As always
• Young Mel Gibson is intriguing to watch
• The innovation within the filming of the car chases is impressive and it's ripples can still be seen today
• Impressive that it made as much money as it did compared to its budget
• The final 30 minutes are pretty coherent and creates a decent film in and of itself
• Ummm...lots of room for improvement?

Retro Rath's Review Score: 2.5/10