vracer-166-903853
Joined Nov 2014
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Reviews4
vracer-166-903853's rating
I saw it at the cinema and didn't think much of it.
The other night I threw it in with my selection of 6-for-$6 weekly DVDs, watched half of it, and gave up.
It truly is one terrible excuse for a Mad Max movie. Surely the people involved can see how bad it is as they're making it? I'm scratching my head here... all involved in this film are clearly delusional.
I waited years and years for this film, and now I wish they hadn't bothered. Beyond Thunderdome was bad enough, but this is a whole new level of bad.
Bad bad bad bad bad.
I very much doubt whether I will ever bother with another George Miller film.
The other night I threw it in with my selection of 6-for-$6 weekly DVDs, watched half of it, and gave up.
It truly is one terrible excuse for a Mad Max movie. Surely the people involved can see how bad it is as they're making it? I'm scratching my head here... all involved in this film are clearly delusional.
I waited years and years for this film, and now I wish they hadn't bothered. Beyond Thunderdome was bad enough, but this is a whole new level of bad.
Bad bad bad bad bad.
I very much doubt whether I will ever bother with another George Miller film.
This is a sweet, simple little film, but with some interesting and thoughtful themes to get your kids thinking a little more about things they see sometimes, but may not really understand.
The biggest of those themes is loss, and the reviewers who don't 'get' Sam Worthingtons character have completely missed this. You don't just 'get over' the loss of your wife five months after her sudden death, everyone has their own way of coming back, and Worthington's character hasn't found that way back when we meet him in the film. He's still lost. And it's his son's understanding of his dads grief that underpins the entire film. It's subtle, but it's the whole driving force of this story. The actual competition that seems to drive the film is actually secondary... but ultimately becomes the catalyst to get the father through his grief and back to 'life'.
My 8yo son picked up on this about halfway through the film, when the father refused to sell the piano - he said 'I know why he can't sell it'. The storyline didn't flesh it out until later, when Dylan told Kimi that his mum had been a piano teacher - and this is another thing the film does; it reveals its layers slowly, and for the most part lets its audience figure things out for themselves.
The messages and lessons for the target audience start almost from the beginning of the film - it will get kids thinking about sportsmanship, peer pressure, role models, friendship, and loss... and it does so with a good dose of laughter and a sublime sense of the ridiculous - always a winner with kids.
Worthington's character didn't really hit his stride until mid film, which was a shame - it left the door open for the less cerebral members of the audience to assume he was just a deadbeat dad, and when those types make that assumption, they'll drop dead before they'll admit to themselves that they were wrong. Not Worthington's fault; the script should have introduced the bereavement earlier than it did.
I also think the connection between Dylan's father and grandfather should have been explored a little more. Ultimately we end up knowing nothing about his father other than that he's shattered by the loss of his wife - that's a given, so why didn't we get a little more about the man himself? I slept on my lounge plenty of times myself in the months following my separation from my wife, but if I were a movie character I'd want my audience to know a bit more about me than that fact.
Tip - have a decent supply of A4 paper on hand for the morning after watching this movie with your kids :)
The biggest of those themes is loss, and the reviewers who don't 'get' Sam Worthingtons character have completely missed this. You don't just 'get over' the loss of your wife five months after her sudden death, everyone has their own way of coming back, and Worthington's character hasn't found that way back when we meet him in the film. He's still lost. And it's his son's understanding of his dads grief that underpins the entire film. It's subtle, but it's the whole driving force of this story. The actual competition that seems to drive the film is actually secondary... but ultimately becomes the catalyst to get the father through his grief and back to 'life'.
My 8yo son picked up on this about halfway through the film, when the father refused to sell the piano - he said 'I know why he can't sell it'. The storyline didn't flesh it out until later, when Dylan told Kimi that his mum had been a piano teacher - and this is another thing the film does; it reveals its layers slowly, and for the most part lets its audience figure things out for themselves.
The messages and lessons for the target audience start almost from the beginning of the film - it will get kids thinking about sportsmanship, peer pressure, role models, friendship, and loss... and it does so with a good dose of laughter and a sublime sense of the ridiculous - always a winner with kids.
Worthington's character didn't really hit his stride until mid film, which was a shame - it left the door open for the less cerebral members of the audience to assume he was just a deadbeat dad, and when those types make that assumption, they'll drop dead before they'll admit to themselves that they were wrong. Not Worthington's fault; the script should have introduced the bereavement earlier than it did.
I also think the connection between Dylan's father and grandfather should have been explored a little more. Ultimately we end up knowing nothing about his father other than that he's shattered by the loss of his wife - that's a given, so why didn't we get a little more about the man himself? I slept on my lounge plenty of times myself in the months following my separation from my wife, but if I were a movie character I'd want my audience to know a bit more about me than that fact.
Tip - have a decent supply of A4 paper on hand for the morning after watching this movie with your kids :)
... this is not The Hurt Locker.
Sienna Miller was pretty good as Taya too, however this was definitely not Clint Eastwood's finest moment. As with 'Inglorious Basterds' I'm glad I waited for DVD... it amazes me that multi-million dollar movies can end up so average.
The cinematography was ordinary, the plot development was ordinary, the 'realism' was ordinary (watched it with my brother who is ex Australian infantry)... I'm not interested in the morality side of things, if you need to explore/expound on that then surely you should be doing so in a forum more applicable to the reality of the Iraq invasion? This is a movie.
Sienna Miller was pretty good as Taya too, however this was definitely not Clint Eastwood's finest moment. As with 'Inglorious Basterds' I'm glad I waited for DVD... it amazes me that multi-million dollar movies can end up so average.
The cinematography was ordinary, the plot development was ordinary, the 'realism' was ordinary (watched it with my brother who is ex Australian infantry)... I'm not interested in the morality side of things, if you need to explore/expound on that then surely you should be doing so in a forum more applicable to the reality of the Iraq invasion? This is a movie.