Mad Max: Fury Road - even faster and more furiouser

Before I write anything about this, I'll start off by saying that I've never seen any of the Mad Max films.  I guess I was either too young or too disinterested in cars when it was the 1980s.  I was assured by a number of people that this was certainly no boundary to enjoying Mad Max: Fury Road.  Having watched the film I'm less sure, only because I would have liked to have understood a little more about what was going on.  Other than this there is a lot to enjoy here.

The film takes place almost entirely on the road, in a drugged up post-apocalyptic desert world where water is controlled by the warlord Immortan Joe.  The only thing more important than water it seems is petrol, which fuels the various bonkers vehicles that the acolytes of Joe use to career around the desert.  The plot is that for some reason Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) decides to abandon whatever privilege she has obtained for herself in Joe's kingdom and escapes with his favoured 'breeders' - a group of lightly-clothed and generally pregnant woman.  Almost immediately Joe mobilises his automobiled army of drugged-up drone-nutters to catch her - for 100 minutes.

It is impossible to disagree with Mark Kermode's assertion that watching Mad Max: Fury Road is something akin to being shouted at while being run over.  It's a chase movie fro start to finish, almost the entire film takes place on the backs of a variety of bizarre-looking buckets of souped-up rust careering about a post-apocalyptical wasteland.  Characters are a mix of insane drone-like beings who live for the thrill of the chase, ethereal pregnant breeders and a couple of vaguely normal-looking petrol-heads - who we presume are our heroes - played by Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy.  Plus a guitarist who leads Joe's warriors into battle from the front of a coverted articulated truck / Ork battlewagon, his guitar spewing flames from its neck obviously.

As an action film it's probably exactly what anyone would want from the genre.  It's simple goodies v baddies in a bonkers world of explosion and unshown consequences where most of the participants value life so little that their own deaths are embraced as an opportunity to show off one's bravado.  There is a comic book style to the landscapes and characters, reminiscent of the recent Borderlands computer game series (though that in itself was perhaps based on the original Mad Max films).  I also felt that there was an element of 300 about it in both style and content, the colour palate has an unrealistic deepness to it, enhancing the fantasy distopia.  This works well with the fact that most of the stunts and collisions are real stunts and collisions, creating a world in which action scenes have the look of a typical comic book action sequence, but with the weight you can only get by actually seeing an actual car smash into another.

I'm not sure what I was expecting; I had been promised a feminist action film, but I don't understand how you can interpret it that way.  I ended up watching 100 minutes of insane comic-book violence; a quite mesmerising blend of the real with the digitally-enhanced that should hold most people's attention for its full run-time.  Can't really recommend it if you're not into this sort of thing.  But if you enjoy a bit of bonkers relentless action, well then this'll scratch your itch - then run it over.

The Revenant - A cameraman's masterpiece

Attended my first 'big' film of the year at the weekend.  The Revenant has been strongly billed around the country as an Oscar contender, and word on the internet is that Leonardo DiCaprio - long over-looked by The Academy - will be picking up the top acting prize for his role.  Worthy of checking out no?

The word 'revenant' means a person who returns from death.  Here this concept is embodied by DiCaprio's character, a man who should by all rights have died.  Hugh Glass is a troubled tracker aiding a group of trappers and explores in the early days of the US expansion west across the Americas.  He is mauled terribly by a wonderfully rendered CGI bear and eventually left to die, but not before rival Fitzgerald (played by Tom Hardy - utterly unrecognisable) gives him good reason to seek a return to civilisation and find his revenge.

It's difficult to not give too much away about The Revenant, mainly because not a lot really happens.  The plot and characterisation of Glass and his contemporaries is very thin.  It's a revenge film in which the character earning his revenge has to endure a series of trials to be reborn into the world of men, escaping the uncaring clutches of nature and Native Americans alike.  What is great about the film is the care and attention that has gone into rendering amazing landscapes on to screen.  All the techniques in the arsenal of the cameraman are on display as the wild frozen scenery is placed on the screen for an enraptured audience to marvel at.  An opening battle sequence (possibly one long take - though perhaps there are cuts) demonstrates an astonishing merger of CGI, camerawork, timing and use of lighting / framing to tell a story of utter panic.  It's a film for which the Director of Photography deserves huge credit.

Though what we see on the screen is beautiful to take in, I did get a feeling that a lot was being repeated, which added to my nagging doubts over the thinness of the plot.  There are only so many times we need to marvel at the frozen prairie landscape before it isn't doing anything to advance the story.  How many times can DiCaprio's character get metaphorically reborn?  How many times does he have to look up into the trees towards heaven, the camera providing the audience with a point-of-view shot?  I reiterate that it looks fantastic, but is it 150 minutes of fantastic?  Rehashing the same beat time and again - that of rebirth and redemption though suffering - I couldn't help be reminded of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.  Not a great comparison.

Is Leonardo DiCaprio about to get his Martin Scorsese moment at the Oscars?  Is it the case that he's finally been handed a role in the sort of film that the Academy feel comfortable handing out awards over?  I can't see why DiCaprio has remained on the sidelines of the Oscars for so long, especially since many of the films in which he gave signature performances won awards in other categories (Titanic, The Departed, Inception - even Django Unchained).  I think the Academy is in the process of convincing itself that The Revenant is better than it is so they can give DiCaprio the award he merits for this career's work.  Or maybe The Academy always just give out awards to actors who play parts where they have to suffer.  Not that The Revenant is in any way a bad film or that DiCaprio gives anything less than a solid performance, but I just don't see it as an actor's movie.  It's a movie in which the Director of Photography and special effects team should receive the highest praise.  As for the acting?  Well I remain unconvinced it is award-worthy.

Check it out for yourself; but get a comfy seat, 150 minutes of comfy seat.

Second Coming - not what I expected

Idris Elba is a great actor, so a film with him in it is going straight on to the 'must watch' list.  I can't remember where it was that I first came across this low budget British film that stars the man himself as a construction worker and family man in inner city London, but the title and premise were immediately intriguing.  Second Coming was billed to refer to something to do with a child in the film, implying that the story would be one about Elba's character's family, with a mystical twist revolving around the biblical story of Revelation.

Well, it isn't quite that.  And though I didn't enjoy Second Coming that much, I didn't have such a crap time as to deliberately spoil it for anyone who might want to check it out.  So I will hold back on giving things away.  What I will say though is that I find it surprising this is a feature length film.  The story of Jax and Mark and their little confused boy JJ isn't that cinematic, and it's a long slog to get to the 'hmm - I wonder what that means...' ending.

As far as my clear up of films I missed when they came as is going - Second Coming is one I wouldn't have been too upset over not seeing in the end.  A review in short - not one to prioritise, as I'm sure the brevity of this post conveys.