If you saw my review of the previous Mad Max film, you could tell I was not a fan, i thought the story and characters were bare boned and predictable and the low budget really ruined the mood, here, they have a real budget, a bigger scope and a wider audience, so how is this one? Probably even worse. *Spoilers Ahead* The Road Warrior takes place several years after the first film where Max has become a hardened fighter who cares for nothing except two things: his dog and himself. Eventually he comes across a community of settlers who hold him prisoner, suspecting him to be a member of The Marauders, a gang of outlaws who seek gasoline and threaten to kill the settlers to get it. The settlers settle (Puns!) a deal with Max to help them out and they'll let him go free with as much gasoline as he can carry. Eventually Max is able to kill the Marauders as the settlers escape and start a new home by the coast, leaving Max to wander the desert yet again as a lone wolf (the dog died).This story clearly takes inspiration from Westerns, it's like Magnificent Seven except...there's only one of them. The problem with a story this simple is that it's so predictable, so cliched that you can see everything coming from a mile away, even killing the dog, a cliche as old as time, and yes, the dog has no purpose other than to be killed off, the story is not interesting at all. I will say it's very well paced, when i checked the time, i expected it to be 20 minutes in when we were over double that time, but that is really the only positive thing i can say about the story. Another problem that I had with the original that carried over here, is that if gasoline is such a scarce resource in this post apocalyptic future then WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE DRIVING SO MUCH!? There was even a point where characters were doing doughnuts, maybe you shouldn't be wasting so much gasoline if it's so scarce. I will say it's much more believable that this is a post-apocalyptic world now, I fully believe that society has crumbled and humanity is on the brink of extinction.
But even then, I can get past a predictable story if they have good characters to back it up...they don't. Max is one of the most boring protagonists i've seen in a film like this, he's the stock "lone wolf" type character. He doesn't say much, he's closed off to the world and only cares about himself; again, a character we've seen a million times before, he's not engaging, he's not interesting and there's nothing special about him. The same can be said for the settlers, we're not given a legitimate reason to care about them apart from the fact that they're not awful people, but that's not enough for me to care about them in the context of the film, lot's of people are dead, what makes these guys so special? No one is developed and they're rather annoying. Even Max doesn't seem to really give a shit about them, and if our protagonist doesn't give a shit about the people he's supposed to be protecting, why should the audience give a shit about who he's protecting? The only kind of interesting character is this little feral kid, he doesn't speak and acts almost like an animal, except he has a boomerang that is sharp enough to kill people. He's the closest thing this movie has to a unique character. Even the villains, who i've heard a lot about, don't have much that makes them interesting or memorable apart from how they dress, but apart from that, there is no personality behind them and they don't make any attempt to make them threatening beyond being general thugs.
And for an action movie, my god the action is boring, but more than that, it is really poorly shot, so many shots were clearly sped up for the sake of making it look most intense but because it's so obvious, it just looks silly. So really, what is there to like here? If the story and characters suck then they should atleast be able to rely on the action, but in fact they're the most boring parts. The fighting is slow, visually uninteresting and the sound design is terrible (glass is shattered and doesn't make a noise, what the fuck). Also could this score be anymore obnoxious? I would like just one action scene where the music wasn't blasting at full volume and distracting me from the actual movie, it doesn't help that the score is generic as shit.
Story: Basic Characters: Generic Action: Poor. I don't like this movie, i may even like it less than the previous movie. The production design is better but atleast the last movie had character arcs, it attempted to give me a reason to give a shit. I do not give a shit about anything in this movie and my final rating is a 3/10.
-Danny
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