Category Movies

Jun 4 2024

The Mad Max Films Ranked

Given the poor box office performance of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, it is likely this will be the final film in the Mad Max franchise for a good while. Hopefully, the film will have a second life on home media/streaming which could lead to the production of Mad Max: The Wastelands, which was based on background material that George Miller wrote when making Mad Max: Fury Road. In any event, for now we will only have five films in the Mad Max franchise and so it is time to rank the films. It is interesting to see how far the films have come from a low-budget independent film way back in 1979 to topnotch Hollywood-funded productions. Here we go, and be sure to leave a comment on the rankings or with your own preferences.

5. Mad Max (1979)

The first film in the Mad Max Saga is also the most unlike the typical Mad Max film we have come to expect. The near-future world of Mad Max largely resembles our own, except that it is running down as lawlessness has become more and more prevalent. Mel Gibson starred as Max Rockatansky, a police officer in the struggling Main Force Patrol (MFP), who is dedicated to maintaining order in the wild highways Down Under. It isn’t until the last fifteen minutes of the film that Max becomes the ruthless anti-hero that we know and love. The film would have been improved if Max left the MFP much sooner and his family was killed earlier on so we could have had more scenes of Gibson as Mad Max.

The fact that it takes so long for the film to get going is why it ranks last. It is a decent origin film that shows us how Max was a decent family man, but even at 90 minutes, the film drags at many places. It features a lot of the impressive car stunts and chases that George Miller improved upon in the later films and Gibson was so magnetic in his portrayal of Max, so it cannot be written off. After all, the popularity of Mad Max helped pave the way for greatness.

4. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

The first half of the third Mad Max film was quite enjoyable and captivating. Mad Max is reduced to a nomadic wanderer in the barren desert wastelands of Australia in his broken-down car that is now pulled by camels. The car is stolen by an airborne raider played by Bruce Spence, who portrayed a similar character in The Road Warrior; yes, it’s kind of confusing and a definite sign that continuity was not a strong suit for these films. Max tracks his vehicle to a settlement called Bartertown run by Aunty Entity (Tina Turner, who was surprisingly great in her role). To win his car and his freedom, Mad Max is forced to fight to the death in a gladiatorial match in Thunderdome. After he breaks the rules in the deathmatch, Max is banished to the desert and is eventually rescued by a band of young children who see him as a messianic figure.

The film suffers greatly when Max meets the young refugees from the Lord of the Flies since this storyline of Max mistaken for being their savior clashes with the Bartertown storyline. The second half of the film slows down and takes on a strangely goofy tone that belonged in an adventure film geared towards kids. Not even the derivative chase scene at the end involving a train could salvage this film, which should have been split into two different films.

3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

The world of Mad Max finally expanded beyond Max himself in this prequel that tells the story of Furiosa, the breakout character from Mad Max: Fury Road. Aside from a brief cameo, Mad Max does not appear in the film, but it still feels like a Mad Max film. The film is more sprawling and epic in scope than the average Mad Max film as it takes place across years, as Furiosa is seen developing from a young innocent girl into a vicious warrior in adulthood.

Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth turn in exceptional performances as Furiosa and her nemesis, Dementus. The production design and other technical aspects of the film are exceptional as is George Miller’s direction. It isn’t as good as Mad Max: Fury Road due to some questionable CG, and although it’s exciting it cannot match the desperate pace of Mad Max: Fury Road that kept us on the edge of our seats. Still, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is an exciting and great entry in the Mad Max franchise.

2. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

The first sequel to Mad Max definitely set the bar (so high) and the template for a classic Mad Max film with pulse-pounding, kinetic car chases, neo-medieval battles in the desert, Western tropes and little dialogue. The film was originally released in 1981 in Australia as Mad Max 2, then released in the United States a year later and renamed The Road Warrior. Nowadays, it is known as Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, but whatever it’s called. it’s one of the best sci-fi action films of all time.

Mel Gibson reprised his role as Mad Max, the loner anti-hero who cares little for others and is only focused on surviving and getting the next tank of gas for his V8 Interceptor. He becomes a reluctant hero after meeting a group of struggling, good-hearted people in a gas refinery settlement that is besieged by ruthless raiders. The film was packed with action and rarely lets you breath as it concluded with a white-knuckle chase scene involving a gas tanker and rig driven by Max attacked by the motorized raiders. This sequence was made so memorable by its frenetic editing and a pounding score by Brian May. Simply put, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior forever established the tone for future films.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Now we come to not just the best Mad Max film, but one of the greatest action films of all time and a futuristic Western on wheels, as director George Miller describes his film. Tom Hardy takes over the role of Mad Max, who is captured by the forces of the desert despot Immorten Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), and is soon caught up in a desperate escape from Immorten’s savage society on a modified tanker with several of Immorten’s wives and Furiosa (Charlize Theron), one of Immorten’s officers who frees the wives. The extended chase scenes across the apocalyptic desert were elevated with beautiful photography, intense editing and some of the most memorable imagery seen on film.

Mad Max: Fury Road was so revered that it was actually nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and won a slew of technical Oscars, which were all well deserved. The film is much more than an action film but one that touches on several themes such as women’s rights, societal injustice and the capabilities of the disabled. It also features many unique and eccentric characters that were easily memorable such as the the vicious Immorten Joe, Nux (Nicholas Hoult), one of Immorten’s soldiers who joins Max, and of course Furiosa, who quickly becomes a co-lead in the film and earned her own film. Mad Max: Fury Road is Mad Max at its finest and is a must watch for film lovers.

José Soto

May 29 2024

Furiosa Excitingly Expands The Mad Max Saga

It’s unfortunate that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is not doing well in theaters because it is a truly great sci-fi action piece and a worthy prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. But given how great the film is, it is certain that it will join that club of films that were initial box-office bombs and become revered as classics later on, as it happened to Blade Runner, The Thing, Edge of Tomorrow, The Suicide Squad, and so on.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga as its title suggests is the background story of Furiosa, the breakout character of Mad Max: Fury Road. As a prequel to that film, it begins back when Furiosa (first played by Alyla Browne, then later by Anya Taylor-Joy) was a young girl who was kidnapped from her idyllic garden home by barbaric raiders. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the world of Mad Max, these are post-apocalyptic films that take place in Australia, which is a barren desert wasteland full of roving gangs that prey on the weak. After seeing her mother killed by the gang that snatched her, Furiosa harbors a personal hatred against the gang and its leader Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a charismatic, yet brutish thug. Seeing Furiosa as a stand-in for his long-lost children, Dementus comes to think of her as his own daughter.

Living a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence, Dementus’ gang encounters the savage society of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who we last saw in Mad Max: Fury Road. After tense negotiations between Dementus and Immortan Joe, Furiosa was traded to Immortan Joe, who intended to raise her to be one of his wives. However, Furiosa escaped that fate, and masquerading as a young male she joined one of Immortan Joe’s pit crews with her desire to return to her home and killing Dementus being her driving force.

Director George Miller, who introduced us to the world of Mad Max, has wowed us again with this captivating, brutal and exciting post-apocalyptic tale of vengeance and survival. The film is visually and tonally similar to Mad Max: Fury Road but differs in that the former film told a tighter story that moved as fast as the vehicles featured in the film. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga tells a more sprawling story that spans years and features many characters, a lot of them returning from Mad Max: Fury Road. Even Mad Max himself pops up in a cameo though he is portrayed by Tom Hardy’s double.

While an expansion and exploration of the world of Mad Max is always welcome, doing so robs Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga of that feeling of intensity and non-stop action that made Mad Max: Fury Road so beloved. Make no mistake, there is a lot of action in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga but there is also a lot of character development as we bear witness to seeing the brutal transformation of Furiosa as she starts off as an innocent yet skilled child into a hardened nearly feral survivor who desperately holds on to lost dreams. As such, the film time between the major action scenes are much longer, although the epic car chases and battles are well worth the wait. The best sequence comes around the halfway point of the film that involves another one of those scenes where motorized gangs besiege a souped-up supply tanker called a War Rig that is armed to the teeth. The scene lasts about 15 minutes and is worth the price of admission alone thanks to George Miller’s skillful talent for delivery pulse-pounding action.

Anya Taylor-Joy does a great job as Furiosa as she takes on some of the characteristics of Mad Max in that she rarely speaks and adopts a savage loner persona. The other actors like Hemsworth are just as memorable in their roles with the standouts being Tom Burke and Charlee Fraser. Burke portrays Praetorian Jack, the sympathetic driver of a war rig that serves as a prototype to Mad Max’s character and could explain why Furiosa eventually bonded with Max. Meanwhile, in her brief presence as Furiosa’s mother, Fraser, was outstanding in her performance as a skilled warrior who went above and beyond to save her daughter. Even though she was not successful, her sacrifice left a solid impression on young Furiosa.

Exploring the world of Mad Max is a welcome idea although the filmmakers should now think beyond epic car chases and battles in deserts. What else is going on in this world? What about the coastline of the continent or beyond? It’s too bad the film is not performing well because it is unlikely we will revisit this world in the near future.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a spectacular entry into the Mad Max Saga that does what it sets out to do: provide the origin story of Furiosa in a kinetic and engaging fashion that exemplifies George Miller’s cinematic style.

May 14 2024

After Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the latest entry of the long-running Planet of the Apes franchise. The film is both a continuation of the previous trilogy that came out in the last decade while being a new starting point for a new trilogy that expands the story of the Apes franchise. There will be spoilers for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

For anyone who hasn’t seen any of these films, the world of Planet of the Apes is one where humans have been supplanted by intelligent apes capable of speech, while humanity has become animalistic. The previous trilogy, consisting of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes, served as the origin story for the franchise. The trilogy provided the background for how apes gained human-level intelligence, which came about from efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. The supposed cure, in the form of an artificial retrovirus, instead increased the intelligence of apes. But the retrovirus had the opposite effect on humans. First it spread like wildfire and killed millions of people and caused civilization to collapse. Then the virus mutated and caused the remaining humans to lose their intelligence and the ability to speak, and cemented the apes dominion on Earth.

The main character in the trilogy was Caesar (in a brilliant motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis), who was the first hyper-intelligent ape and the leader of an Ape Rebellion against the humans who tormented his species. Eventually, Caesar tried to live a quiet life as the leader of his ape colony in the forests beyond human civilization, but conflict arose between the two species. By the end of the last Planet of the Apes film, Caesar was able to defeat the humans that enslaved his fellow apes and led them to an oasis to start a new colony, but he died from wounds inflicted during his battle with humans.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes takes place “many generations” after the death of Caesar and apes have evolved further and multiplied while transforming from a hunter-gatherer society into an agricultural one. Meanwhile, humanity has devolved into mute, animalistic savages, however, Noa (Owen Teague), the lead ape character, meets Mae (Freya Allan), a young human woman who is actually intelligent and able to speak. Eventually it is revealed she comes from a human outpost that is quarantined from the world and located near a satellite base. These humans are still intelligent and by the end of the film have begun efforts to communicate with other humans who have not succumbed to the virus in order to reestablish human civilization. Obviously, this will set up a future conflict between humans and apes if Mae’s settlement is able to jump start civilization.

One of the later elements that made the films in this franchise so compelling was the eternal question of humanity being able to co-exist with another society, which was an obvious, and sadly still an ongoing, allegory to our inability to co-exist with each other. This theme was vaguely hinted at in the second Apes film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, but was the main focus in the films that followed starting with Escape From the Planet of the Apes. After the violent revolution seen in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes offered the hope that both species were able to co-exist peacefully, though that was debatable.

In the final moments of that film, which took place hundreds of years in the future, several ape and human children were attending a lecture by an ape teacher, who was narrating the events of the film. Although this ape spoke about the ability of both species living in peace, a young girl and an young ape were seen squabbling with each other, hinting at a future conflict between the two. After this, a statue of the main character in that film (also known as Caesar, this time played by Roddy McDowall) was seen crying. It was left to viewers to ponder if these were tears of joy because the two species at last lived peacefully or if the tears were of sorrow because of a coming conflict between humans and apes.

This idea of trying to live peacefully is touched upon in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes as Noa questions Mae in the final scenes if it is possible to for the two species to share the planet. Mae answers that she does not know, but he doesn’t realize that as she is talking to him, she has a gun ready to shoot him, just in case. Of course, the very notion that she brings a gun with her while coming to Noa’s colony raises the question if she is trustworthy. Throughout the film, she gave little reason to trust her as she lied to Noa and his apes about her true motives from the moment she meets them.

Noa is rightfully suspicious of her and in turn, humanity, but he is willing to work with her during his conflict with Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), a despotic ape leader from another clan that enslaved his clan. Noa is also more focused on learning and passing knowledge to his people. He learns about Caesar and his peaceful ways as the ape has become a religious leader long after his death. It is implied that Noa will pass on the legend of Caesar to his clan while inspiring them to learn more about the world. This is best illustrated in the final moments when he takes his ape companion Soona (Lydia Peckham) to a decaying observatory and introduces her to the wonders of the universe via an old telescope.

Mae for her part is shown as being worried about Noa and the evolving ape civilization that will prevent humanity from making a comeback. In one scene she silently watches Noa repair a cattle prod that was used by one of Proximus Caesar’s soldiers and is worried at his ability to repair a tool. During the film, she and Noa are captured by Proximus Caesar’s forces and is ordered by the ape tyrant to help him open an abandoned vault used by the human military long ago. She is adamant that apes should not have access to old human weapons and technology inside the vault and was willing to let innocent apes die to prevent their access.

During her mission to enter the vault, Mae killed a fellow human, a collaborator called Trevathan (William H. Macy), who threatened to expose her to the apes. Though it was understandable why she was distrustful of the apes and the collaborator, her actions made her untrustworthy and ignoble. On the other hand, her actions are meant to help resurrect human civilization and it is seen through Proximus Caesar that the apes are not much better than humans and full of humanity’s worst traits.

It will be interesting to see where the Apes franchise will go after Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. It is clear that a new trilogy is been set up that will put ape and humanity into conflict once again. There is also a tantalizing hint that space travel will be involved, as Noa is seen being fascinated by space and images of astronauts. As wild as it sounds, having apes evolve to the point of venturing into space is a great idea. Who knows? Maybe space exploration could wind up being the means for both species to learn how to cooperate and live in peace if space travel is needed to help save the Earth.

It also hints at the possibility of the new Apes films linking back to the original films. Think about it. The very first film featured astronauts who wound up on Earth in the far future and Rise of the Planet of the Apes featured Easter eggs of a lost space mission, which could be these astronauts that could show up again at the end of the new trilogy. Anyway, no matter which direction future films go, the Apes franchise has demonstrated the uncanny ability to move into new and exciting directions as most recently seen with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Apr 29 2024

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The MCU’s Greatest Solo Superhero Film

As Captain America: The Winter Soldier celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, it’s time to take a quick examination of why the Captain America film is considered one of the best films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Very few MCU fans expected much from the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger, especially given that Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier were relative unknowns whose biggest accomplishments to date were directing episodes of Community. Yet, the film blew away audiences, critics and fans with its non-stop action, intriguing script and well-developed characters. It turned out to be one of the most important films in the MCU as it forever changed it.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier centers around Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) uncovering a huge conspiracy in S.H.I.E.L.D. the spy organization he works for while grappling with a deadly ghost from his past. The first Captain America film dealt with Steve’s adventures as a superhero during World War II and ended with him being frozen in ice then revived during modern times. Ordinarily, a sequel film would have focused on fish-out-of-water tropes as Steve struggled to adapt to a whole new world. While this does happen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the film to its credit doesn’t concentrate on this concept. Instead it forces Steve to adhere to his honorable values as the world around him exhibits dubious morality. He clashes with his superiors who think nothing of spying on civilians and eroding their privacy with a clandestine project. He soon learns that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised by the evil Hydra organization which plans to use the project to unleash a preemptive attack on its enemies throughout the world, including members of the superhero team, the Avengers. For his troubles, Steve is branded a traitor and chased by the mysterious Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), a deadly assassin who turns out to be his best friend Bucky from his World War II days.

All these plot elements successfully evoked a paranoid spy/political thriller that was highlighted with high-octane action scenes that demonstrated how vicious and lethal the Winter Soldier was. These battles were among the best action scenes ever seen in any film and has not been replicated in other MCU films. There was a genuine sense of danger and fear as Steve and his allies fought the Winter Soldier and the compromised S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. One scene in particular, which took place in an elevator, proved what a badass Captain America was. He was surrounded in a cramp space by several men who tried to arrest him and he singlehandedly fought and defeated them despite the odds.

But getting back to the political angle, the film always kept you guessing as to who could be trusted, or what was actually happening in a way that was not confusing and kept audiences engaged. It helped that the film featured Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, a government official who was actually a Hydra agent. Redford’s acting prowess elevated the film and he was a great callback to the ’70s spy thrillers such as his own Three Days of the Condor.

More importantly, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was at its core a film about a man struggling with his past and his place in the world. In this situation, Steve tries to make sense of the new world he is forced to live in where it seems as if his values are out of step. But they are what is needed to fight a great evil that has corrupted the world and his best friend. What makes confronting Bucky so much worse for Steve is not only Bucky the lethal Winter Soldier, but due to brainwashing by Hydra over the decades, Bucky has lost his decent personality and no longer remembers his past or his friendship with Steve. The Winter Soldier is the only remaining link Steve has with his past and he has to find the strength to bring his friend back. His plight was very emotional and the sacrifice he made at the end to get through to Bucky was very powerful. The final battle between the two as Steve struggled to connect with Bucky was much more riveting than the wild, effects-laden action scenes involving Steve’s other friends fighting Hydra.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier propelled the narrative of the MCU from that point as it no longer had S.H.I.E.L.D. as the support organization for the Avengers and the world. This in turn would later have severe consequences during future Avengers films and immediately impacted the TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Even though that show is now ignored these days, back in 2014, it was clearly part of the MCU and the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier directly affected the TV show as one of the main characters was revealed to be a Hydra agent, and the other characters underwent crises of faith. The film also led to Captain America becoming a man without a country and on the run as seen in the next Captain America film, Captain America: Civil War when his morality led to a devastating conflict with some of his fellow Avengers to the point that the team broke up and left Earth unprotected.

Thanks to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the MCU began to be seen as something more than typical superhero films. This was reinforced later in the summer of 2014 with the release of the space epic Guardians of the Galaxy. Together, the films proved that the superhero film genre was very diverse in terms of storytelling and being able to surprise everyone with its potential. That is because not only is Captain America: The Winter Soldier the best superhero solo film of the MCU but one of the greatest films of all time.

José Soto

Apr 25 2024

Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver Is A Perfect Reason For Not Giving Directors Free Reign

Well, Madame Web actually has a competitor for the worse film of 2024. That would be Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver for those fortunate enough to not have seen it.

Director Zack Snyder’s hardcore fans keep insisting that Snyder should be allowed to do whatever he wants with his films. They claim that his vision for the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) was stymied by idiotic studio heads who then ruined his films and the rest of the DCEU. However, Snyder’s latest film is a textbook cautionary example of what happens when a director is given carte blanche creative control over a film.

Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver, which streamed last week on Netflix, is the sequel to Rebel Moon, Part One: A Child of Fire that streamed last December. The storyline is based on a failed pitch for a Star Wars film and it is about a young woman named Kora (Sofia Boutella) who lives in a quiet farming colony on a moon that has to recruit a team to help her colony fend off an invasion by the evil Imperium. It’s essentially a sci-fi remake of Seven Samurai (which has been done before with Battle Beyond the Stars), as she recruits eccentric warriors to defend her colony. The first film was OK with excellent production values and cinematography although the script was derivative of other sci-fi tropes, and man, it was full of slow-mo shots. It was hoped by critics that part two would be a huge payoff for the setup, but that did not turn out as expected.

Instead of giving a satisfying and coherent conclusion, Snyder goes all out and indulges in the worst aspects of his cinematic bag of tricks. The film just oozes needless slow-mo shots of people farming, walking, or making any kind of motion. It was slow-mo porn! The film also boasted too many exposition dumps that brought the film’s story into a screeching halt. The scenes were the characters stopped in their tracks to give us extended back stories were clumsily done and were too long thanks to…slow-mo shots. What was worse is that these character expositions did little to endear us to Kora and her team of misfit warriors. The decisions made by the characters in their back stories often did not make sense and in the end none of the stories made the characters memorable. This was clear when not only was there no sympathy for any heroic characters when they died but it was hard to tell who they were during the well-staged battle scenes.

To its credit, Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver, had great special effects and design that evoked Warhammer 40,000 and of course Star Wars. The final boss battle between Kora and Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein) was well choreographed as they fought with their lightsabres, or whatever the swords are called in the Rebel Moon universe (help us but more films are planned) and Anthony Hopkins was brilliant as the voice of the Jimmy the rebel robot. But logic of the epic battles in the final act did not make sense. How could an advanced intergalactic force fail to detect simple farmers hiding out with weapons? How is it the main heroes are able to take out scores of armored enemy soldiers armed with axes and clubs? This was worse than when the Ewoks defeated the Empire’s forces in Return of the Jedi. All these flaws would have been forgivable if 1) we cared about the characters and 2) the battles engaged us. In other words, the battles were boring, the worst possible insult for action scenes.

While derivative from the start, Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver had the potential to be a rousing action film that would have been Zack Snyder’s answer to Star Wars. Instead we have to give credit to Lucasfilm for having the wisdom to turn down Snyder’s pitch.

The problem with the two Rebel Moon films boils down to the fact that Zack Snyder was given too much creative freedom and he overindulged his worst cinematic impulses. Yes, Snyder is a very talented director but he needs firm guidance when executing his films. So, if there are more Rebel Moon films, Snyder will have to either control himself or allow himself to be guided by objective partners.

José Soto