Not quite a full Mad Max movie
The story seemed relatively fleshed-out to the extent that a George Miller Mad Max movie should be, but it still suffered from some production issues that were either solved by better editing in Fury Road, or that got more time for development in Fury Road, leading to a more polished product.
Anya Taylor Joy's...excellent depth perception...was distracting in a lot of her scenes because the black oil on her face provided her eyes with much higher contrast than they usually have, and it just made Charlize Theron's absence that much more glaring. The transition between the child version of her and the adult version (played by different actresses, obviously) was pretty seamless, as was the transition between the end of Furiosa to what is clearly the beginning of Fury Road.
The biggest, most glaring issue was the compositing of CGI elements in scenes where a lot of things were going on on-screen at the same time. Color grading wasn't consistent between those elements in the background partially because of the use of green screens, they appeared to not be anchored to the ground, and in some cases (most notably a corpse wagon with bodies being flopped onto it in the foreground of a shot), some elements slide around as the camera pans. It got to a point where it felt more like a low-budget TV movie compared to Fury Road.
Another issue was the sheer number of people in the movie who didn't need to be in every scene. Many shots are just a bunch of named characters standing around the people talking, and when decisions are made about them, it doesn't seem to impact them in a way that would indicate that their lives in the movie world have value, because their likely deaths are dictated by the script. They aren't main characters, but their reactions are rarely anything more than "ok, I guess I'm going with that guy now, it's just a slight inconvenience for me".
There are several scenes that either lacked context (possibly because the movie was edited down to two and a half hours), but more seemed as if they didn't need to be in the movie at all. Surely they had some sort of reference to another Mad Max movie that diehard fans would understand and appreciate, but they didn't warrant a two and a half hour runtime for how much they added to the plot. Some of them seemed to exclusively serve as a way to justify how many props were manufactured. There were some characters who also didn't seem to really serve a purpose, even as nods to Fury Road.
Overall, it was entertaining and stylistically pleasing, but the production errors were glaring and frequently distracting from the plot. There's a shorter version on the cutting room floor, and perhaps the budget for the sprawling array of set pieces could have gone into post-production instead.
Anya Taylor Joy's...excellent depth perception...was distracting in a lot of her scenes because the black oil on her face provided her eyes with much higher contrast than they usually have, and it just made Charlize Theron's absence that much more glaring. The transition between the child version of her and the adult version (played by different actresses, obviously) was pretty seamless, as was the transition between the end of Furiosa to what is clearly the beginning of Fury Road.
The biggest, most glaring issue was the compositing of CGI elements in scenes where a lot of things were going on on-screen at the same time. Color grading wasn't consistent between those elements in the background partially because of the use of green screens, they appeared to not be anchored to the ground, and in some cases (most notably a corpse wagon with bodies being flopped onto it in the foreground of a shot), some elements slide around as the camera pans. It got to a point where it felt more like a low-budget TV movie compared to Fury Road.
Another issue was the sheer number of people in the movie who didn't need to be in every scene. Many shots are just a bunch of named characters standing around the people talking, and when decisions are made about them, it doesn't seem to impact them in a way that would indicate that their lives in the movie world have value, because their likely deaths are dictated by the script. They aren't main characters, but their reactions are rarely anything more than "ok, I guess I'm going with that guy now, it's just a slight inconvenience for me".
There are several scenes that either lacked context (possibly because the movie was edited down to two and a half hours), but more seemed as if they didn't need to be in the movie at all. Surely they had some sort of reference to another Mad Max movie that diehard fans would understand and appreciate, but they didn't warrant a two and a half hour runtime for how much they added to the plot. Some of them seemed to exclusively serve as a way to justify how many props were manufactured. There were some characters who also didn't seem to really serve a purpose, even as nods to Fury Road.
Overall, it was entertaining and stylistically pleasing, but the production errors were glaring and frequently distracting from the plot. There's a shorter version on the cutting room floor, and perhaps the budget for the sprawling array of set pieces could have gone into post-production instead.
- Rrearleii
- Jul 16, 2024