They really got the name of this movie wrong. It is not about Mad Max Rocketansky. It is about Furiosa Jones and the Search for the Holy Grail. Max plays the part of Sir Gawain.
If you haven't seen the movie, stop reading RIGHT NOW and go see it first. Then come back here and finish reading. Or else I'll spoil your brains out.
===
A long time from now, in the land Down Under, in a big rock tower (called the Rock'n'Roll Tower of Fun, home of War Boys, Water Works, Wicked Winches and Wascally Wenches) there lived a wise old white-haired dude named Emotin' Joe.1
Emotin Joe realized that there was a lot of very sick people around, including himself, and he thought that the world would be better off if all the sick people hurried up and died (except himself) and left only the beautiful people (himself, his sons, and a bunch of beautiful women) even though he was not beautiful at all and the chance of him having non-mutant children, due to the radiation damage to his body from the nuclear war which had apparently destroyed the planet (mostly), was practically nil. So he moved into this really cool mountain with lots of water and hydroponic plants and cool customized cars and trucks and tankers and bizarre white-painted mutant bald boys who liked to drive very fast through the desert in an effort to burn up all the evil gasoline (pronounced 'guzzle-lean').
Emotin Joe had a faithful friend called Furiosa Jones (actually, they only called her 'Furiosa', but I think she needs a last name because it seems everyone else gets one, so why not her?) who drove his big tanker truck back and forth to the town of 'Gas' to deliver water and food in exchange for 'guzzle-lean'. Which was a marvelous business arrangement and seemed to suit everyone just fine. And it was easy, too, since Gas Town was straight across the valley from Emotin Joe's Rock'n'Roll Tower of Fun.
But one day Emotin Joe decided that instead of delivering food and water to Gas Town, he'd deliver guzzle-lean -- which is like delivering Italians to Rome, if you ask me -- and Furiosa, using the logical brain she'd been gifted with, decided that it made much more sense to deliver the guzzle-lean to somebody else, someone who really needed it, like these guys who were living up in the mountain pass and only had little motorcycles to ride around on. Sure, they get great gas mileage so they probably don't run out of fuel very quickly, but eventually they do run out; and then what are they supposed to do? They don't have the nice big trucks covered with guns and explosive harpoons that Emotin Joe has, so everyone just laughs at them when they drive over to Gas Town to try and borrow a cup of guzzle-lean. ("Give us some guzzle-lean, or we'll rev up our engines really, really loud!!")
So Furiosa, who is leading a huge group of cars and motorcycles and other vehicles armed to the teeth with offensive weaponry, takes a little teeny-weeny detour from her assigned destination (a left turn at Albuquerque) and heads for the mountain pass.
For some reason, the inescapable logic of her decision escapes wise old Emotin Joe, and he gets mad and sends his entire army of War Boys after her. Maybe he doesn't like those mountain guys. Maybe he doesn't think the high altitude will be good for her complexion. Or perhaps he's upset because all the beautiful women he's been collecting over the years - the ones he's been trying to impregnate with his irradiated sperm - decided to stow away on Furiosa's tanker truck because they were getting tired of living inside a rock and wanted to see a bit of the world before settling down to be stay-at-home moms for a bunch of mutant children.
So this huge army of maniacal mutants chases after Furiosa and her little band of misfits, but she loses them in a monstrous sandstorm.2
Furiosa and her erstwhile gang of gangly girls survive the sandstorm but have to stop for a bit to clean out the carburetors (which are, oddly enough, full of sand). They come upon Max and his War Boy buddy Nux, who need a ride because the sandstorm destroyed their car.
Furiosa allows Max and Nux to come along for the ride, mostly because she's tired and needs someone to drive the truck while she catches some much-needed sleep, but also because Emotin' Joe's army catches up with them and it would be helpful to have some extra hands around to shoot guns and throw missiles at their pursuers. Max is happy because he gets to drive again, and Nux is happy because one of the beautiful women strokes his face and says, "Poor baby!" which makes him fall in love with her and forget the fact that he's supposed to be keeping them from getting away.
After lots of exciting driving across the desert, with people dying left and right (including, unfortunately, the young lady voted Most Likely To Go Into Labor In The Middle Of An Action Movie),3 our heroes manage to escape the army and find the Band of Old Wise Women, who inform them that they missed their destination ("I knew I shouldn't have taken a left turn at Albuquerque!") and there is nowhere left to go except east across a huge, empty salt flat. Which is like guaranteed death. Furiosa wants to keep going until they all die of heat prostration because she is depressed after finding out that there's no escape from the land of Oz, but Max convinces her that she is wearing the ruby slippers, and all she has to do is to click her heels together three times while muttering, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home". No, not really! That's a different story. Actually, all she has to do is turn around and drive back the way they came. Which is completely logical. Except for the part where they have to get past Emotin' Joe's army. Which is just about as suicidal as heading east across the salt flats. But hey, whaddya gonna do? They still have guzzle-lean to burn, and the audience still has popcorn in their tubs.
So she and Max and Nux and the gangly girls turn around and head back to the Rock'n'Roll Tower of Fun, killing off Emotin' Joe and his army,4 and are welcomed with open arms by the mutant community because the mutant community never liked Emotin' Joe in the first place, and really they just wanted him to keep the water running instead of turning it off after only ten seconds.5 What a tease!
And while they're all celebrating and playing in the water and looking forward to years of blissful eating and drinking and repopulating, Max sneaks away into the crowd and vanishes into the desert. Again. Apparently he's allergic to happiness.
===
Looking back on it through the lens of a couple hours later, I'm deeply dissatisfied with the fact that they bothered to include Mad Max at all. He really didn't add much to the story. It really could've been done without him. The only thing he added to the story, besides the obvious "additional person to fight off bad guys", was the suggestion that they all turn around and go back to where they'd come from, because that's where all the food and water was. There really wasn't much choice at that point. They had no guarantee of anything beyond the salt flat (other than miles and miles of salt); they already knew where the food and water was -- and they really needed food and water! So the choice was obvious. It just meant that they had to be willing to die for what they needed.
In the end, Furiosa and the gangly girls get what they wanted, control of their own destinies, and Max just slinks away. Which is supposed to be his character, I realize, but it is still not as satisfying as letting the poor guy have some peace.
It is hinted at the beginning of the movie that Max is haunted by ghosts of the people he was unable to save, and it is one of those ghosts that prompts him to convince Furiosa to turn around and fight for what she needs. But that might have been a ghost that Furiosa was dealing with; we really didn't need Max to try and convince her. In fact, it would've been far more poignant if we had seen Furiosa struggling with her own internal demons (of guilt, despair, whatever) and deciding on her own to turn back. The whole conversation with Max out on the salt plain was unconvincing.
I hope the next Mad Max movie is actually about Max.
1He was supposed to be called "Immortan Joe" (as in "Immortal", I suppose) but it makes more sense that they call him "Emotin' Joe" because with the mask on, the poor guy couldn't emote much at all. With those dark circles around his eyes, the only vibe I was getting from him was extreme exhaustion. Which makes sense, given the fact he was trying to repopulate the world. Might've been easier to just adopt.
If you haven't seen the movie, stop reading RIGHT NOW and go see it first. Then come back here and finish reading. Or else I'll spoil your brains out.
===
A long time from now, in the land Down Under, in a big rock tower (called the Rock'n'Roll Tower of Fun, home of War Boys, Water Works, Wicked Winches and Wascally Wenches) there lived a wise old white-haired dude named Emotin' Joe.1
Emotin Joe realized that there was a lot of very sick people around, including himself, and he thought that the world would be better off if all the sick people hurried up and died (except himself) and left only the beautiful people (himself, his sons, and a bunch of beautiful women) even though he was not beautiful at all and the chance of him having non-mutant children, due to the radiation damage to his body from the nuclear war which had apparently destroyed the planet (mostly), was practically nil. So he moved into this really cool mountain with lots of water and hydroponic plants and cool customized cars and trucks and tankers and bizarre white-painted mutant bald boys who liked to drive very fast through the desert in an effort to burn up all the evil gasoline (pronounced 'guzzle-lean').
Emotin Joe had a faithful friend called Furiosa Jones (actually, they only called her 'Furiosa', but I think she needs a last name because it seems everyone else gets one, so why not her?) who drove his big tanker truck back and forth to the town of 'Gas' to deliver water and food in exchange for 'guzzle-lean'. Which was a marvelous business arrangement and seemed to suit everyone just fine. And it was easy, too, since Gas Town was straight across the valley from Emotin Joe's Rock'n'Roll Tower of Fun.
But one day Emotin Joe decided that instead of delivering food and water to Gas Town, he'd deliver guzzle-lean -- which is like delivering Italians to Rome, if you ask me -- and Furiosa, using the logical brain she'd been gifted with, decided that it made much more sense to deliver the guzzle-lean to somebody else, someone who really needed it, like these guys who were living up in the mountain pass and only had little motorcycles to ride around on. Sure, they get great gas mileage so they probably don't run out of fuel very quickly, but eventually they do run out; and then what are they supposed to do? They don't have the nice big trucks covered with guns and explosive harpoons that Emotin Joe has, so everyone just laughs at them when they drive over to Gas Town to try and borrow a cup of guzzle-lean. ("Give us some guzzle-lean, or we'll rev up our engines really, really loud!!")
So Furiosa, who is leading a huge group of cars and motorcycles and other vehicles armed to the teeth with offensive weaponry, takes a little teeny-weeny detour from her assigned destination (a left turn at Albuquerque) and heads for the mountain pass.
For some reason, the inescapable logic of her decision escapes wise old Emotin Joe, and he gets mad and sends his entire army of War Boys after her. Maybe he doesn't like those mountain guys. Maybe he doesn't think the high altitude will be good for her complexion. Or perhaps he's upset because all the beautiful women he's been collecting over the years - the ones he's been trying to impregnate with his irradiated sperm - decided to stow away on Furiosa's tanker truck because they were getting tired of living inside a rock and wanted to see a bit of the world before settling down to be stay-at-home moms for a bunch of mutant children.
So this huge army of maniacal mutants chases after Furiosa and her little band of misfits, but she loses them in a monstrous sandstorm.2
Furiosa and her erstwhile gang of gangly girls survive the sandstorm but have to stop for a bit to clean out the carburetors (which are, oddly enough, full of sand). They come upon Max and his War Boy buddy Nux, who need a ride because the sandstorm destroyed their car.
Furiosa allows Max and Nux to come along for the ride, mostly because she's tired and needs someone to drive the truck while she catches some much-needed sleep, but also because Emotin' Joe's army catches up with them and it would be helpful to have some extra hands around to shoot guns and throw missiles at their pursuers. Max is happy because he gets to drive again, and Nux is happy because one of the beautiful women strokes his face and says, "Poor baby!" which makes him fall in love with her and forget the fact that he's supposed to be keeping them from getting away.
After lots of exciting driving across the desert, with people dying left and right (including, unfortunately, the young lady voted Most Likely To Go Into Labor In The Middle Of An Action Movie),3 our heroes manage to escape the army and find the Band of Old Wise Women, who inform them that they missed their destination ("I knew I shouldn't have taken a left turn at Albuquerque!") and there is nowhere left to go except east across a huge, empty salt flat. Which is like guaranteed death. Furiosa wants to keep going until they all die of heat prostration because she is depressed after finding out that there's no escape from the land of Oz, but Max convinces her that she is wearing the ruby slippers, and all she has to do is to click her heels together three times while muttering, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home". No, not really! That's a different story. Actually, all she has to do is turn around and drive back the way they came. Which is completely logical. Except for the part where they have to get past Emotin' Joe's army. Which is just about as suicidal as heading east across the salt flats. But hey, whaddya gonna do? They still have guzzle-lean to burn, and the audience still has popcorn in their tubs.
So she and Max and Nux and the gangly girls turn around and head back to the Rock'n'Roll Tower of Fun, killing off Emotin' Joe and his army,4 and are welcomed with open arms by the mutant community because the mutant community never liked Emotin' Joe in the first place, and really they just wanted him to keep the water running instead of turning it off after only ten seconds.5 What a tease!
And while they're all celebrating and playing in the water and looking forward to years of blissful eating and drinking and repopulating, Max sneaks away into the crowd and vanishes into the desert. Again. Apparently he's allergic to happiness.
===
Looking back on it through the lens of a couple hours later, I'm deeply dissatisfied with the fact that they bothered to include Mad Max at all. He really didn't add much to the story. It really could've been done without him. The only thing he added to the story, besides the obvious "additional person to fight off bad guys", was the suggestion that they all turn around and go back to where they'd come from, because that's where all the food and water was. There really wasn't much choice at that point. They had no guarantee of anything beyond the salt flat (other than miles and miles of salt); they already knew where the food and water was -- and they really needed food and water! So the choice was obvious. It just meant that they had to be willing to die for what they needed.
In the end, Furiosa and the gangly girls get what they wanted, control of their own destinies, and Max just slinks away. Which is supposed to be his character, I realize, but it is still not as satisfying as letting the poor guy have some peace.
It is hinted at the beginning of the movie that Max is haunted by ghosts of the people he was unable to save, and it is one of those ghosts that prompts him to convince Furiosa to turn around and fight for what she needs. But that might have been a ghost that Furiosa was dealing with; we really didn't need Max to try and convince her. In fact, it would've been far more poignant if we had seen Furiosa struggling with her own internal demons (of guilt, despair, whatever) and deciding on her own to turn back. The whole conversation with Max out on the salt plain was unconvincing.
I hope the next Mad Max movie is actually about Max.
1He was supposed to be called "Immortan Joe" (as in "Immortal", I suppose) but it makes more sense that they call him "Emotin' Joe" because with the mask on, the poor guy couldn't emote much at all. With those dark circles around his eyes, the only vibe I was getting from him was extreme exhaustion. Which makes sense, given the fact he was trying to repopulate the world. Might've been easier to just adopt.
2I'm skipping all the details of the car chase because nothing really happens other than people dying and cars blowing up.
3Notice how neatly they avoid the obvious cliche of having the girl go into labor in the middle of an action scene. By killing her off. Also notice how I'm skipping all the details of the car chase (again) because nothing really happens other than (more) people dying and (more) cars blowing up.
4Unfortunately, Nux dies as well, sacrificing himself in order that the others might live, which makes him the most sympathetic character in the whole movie. Which doesn't say a lot for Max.
5Really. The guy turned on the water for all of ten seconds. He had a huge underground river of water gushing out of the rock, and he lets it run for all of ten seconds His 'people' nearly killed each other trying to get a few drops! What a jerk.
3Notice how neatly they avoid the obvious cliche of having the girl go into labor in the middle of an action scene. By killing her off. Also notice how I'm skipping all the details of the car chase (again) because nothing really happens other than (more) people dying and (more) cars blowing up.
4Unfortunately, Nux dies as well, sacrificing himself in order that the others might live, which makes him the most sympathetic character in the whole movie. Which doesn't say a lot for Max.
5Really. The guy turned on the water for all of ten seconds. He had a huge underground river of water gushing out of the rock, and he lets it run for all of ten seconds His 'people' nearly killed each other trying to get a few drops! What a jerk.
