The People Eater really grossed folks out. There was such a reaction when they showed his nasty swollen up leg and foot. Was that supposed to be extreme gout? Or just some mutation?
I went with three friends. One of them had heard some bad ratings about the movie, and he went in with very low expectations. I and the remaining two friends had little to no expectations. In fact, none of us had even heard about the original trilogy starring Mel Gibson. Despite his low expectations, the first friend was impressed with the action and the setting, as was I. The other two were disappointed though.
The entire movie being set in the desert made me a bit uncomfortable, as if I was actually stranded there. But the movie managed to show off the desert in rich and vibrant colours - a welcome break from the dark, gloomy cinematography in recent action movies. I loved some of the details like the guitar player and the overall religious theme in the movie.
Furiosa and Mad Max were badass. Nicholas Hoult did well as Nux; I barely recognised him. As for the five Mothers, I was initially expecting them to be generic interchangeable characters, whose are there only to be saved by the two lead characters. Fortunately, I was wrong - they turned out to have distinct personalities and skills, yay!
Coming to the plot, I have a couple of questions. Can someone please straighten this out for me? 
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What convinces Nux to turn against Immortan Joe? I think this has to do with the death of Angharad, but not sure exactly how.
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What exactly was Furiosa’s motivation? She said something about redemption, but I am not sure what she was talking about. My friends thought maybe this was related to her kidnapping as a child; that would make sense had she been seeking revenge instead of redemption.
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Did Joe’s followers follow him out of fanaticism or fear? The suicide cult following suggests fanaticism and brainwashing. OTOH, the final scene at the Citadel makes it seem that the people actually hated him.
TIA for any explanations.
I think we’re just outright talking about the movie now- I don’t think spoiler boxes
needed… but
Spoiler warning-
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Nux knew he was dying. He knew he had failed repeatedly infront of Immorton Joe. He had his faith crushed. Capable’s kindness probably got to him.
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Furiosa had risen to the rank of Imperator as part of the subjugation regime–she’s killed, she’s thrown women into bondage, etc. If she could do one good thing to make up for that–it would be freeing these sex-slaves and taking them to a place where their womanhood would be celebrated and honored.
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Joe’s followers were the War Boys and the factory people who stayed behind–everyone else were his subjects. The PEOPLE–those dirty people at the bottom and the living milk factories-- hated him but needed him.
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no one has ever been nice to Nux before, and his faith’s been shattered - like he said, he’d had three chances at a Glorious Shiny Death and a trip to Valhalla, and fucked it up each time. The redhead spots him at exactly the right moment that his faith/slavish devotion is able to be breached, and is NICE to him, and doesn’t expect anything in return. After that, he sees Joe die, so what’s left to do but try and save the one beautiful loving thing in his life?
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if Furiosa had been kidnapped by Immortan Joe as a child, and she’s a healthy woman, I’m betting she had kids by him or by one of the other two town leaders that turned into War Boys or slaves or breeders themselves. In addition, if she’s driving a rig and in an obvious position of respect from the other War Boys, she’s probably done a fuckton of killing and raiding and slaying to get to the point where she’s a trusted part of the leadership. I’d feel guilty as hell about that if it were me, so redemption makes sense.
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I bet there’s a difference between the War Boys cult and the poor SOBs down in the desert floor. Nux and the other Boys seem to act like they’re chosen and special, which means the ones below are by definition NOT chosen and NOT special. In addition, most of the boys had health issues, even if not as bad as the rejects below - there were splints and breathing tubes and tumors and whatnot - looks like Joe turned a possible liability (how can you lead if you’re gross and you can’t even heal us?) into a bonus by building a mythology that they only get a ‘half-life’ here on earth as damaged physical vessels, but will be whole and ‘shiny’ when they get to Valhalla by way of glorious death in support of Joe’s goals.
From another angle, I’m scared of spiders, to the point that I can’t kill them myself, but if I see a dead one, you bet I’m going to smush it unto a paste smear to make damn sure it’s really totally all dead and not coming back to scare me again. That last scene seemed very like that impulse to me.
Thanks, **Push You Down ** and Lasciel.
While you are at it, please make the room soundproofed lest he starts [del]groaning[/del] crooning. 
So I did manage to see this, and I guess I’m going to be the most negative person in the thread by being only lukewarm positive on it. Still positive, mind you! Don’t tar and feather me! I liked it! But maybe (probably) because my expectations had been pulled so high by the consistency of the reviews, I was expecting something that changed how I looked at action movies, and I got… a pretty good action movie. Might just not be my thing. Happy it wasn’t bad. But reading through the thread, it didn’t push a lot of the passion and wonder buttons that it seems it did for most.
(No! You can’t draw and quarter me either! I liked it! My review rates as positive by RT!)
I loved it.
You either enjoy the over-the-topness, or you don’t. They certainly were not trying to hide it, with a flamethrower-spouting electric guitar marionette dude. 
Me, I enjoyed it for what it was. Sure none of it made any sense, but who the fuck cares? It was a visual feast. Time spent in-movie making sense of it would be time wasted. Who wants to see a realistic post-apocalyptic distopia? That would just be depressing. Might as well be watching The Road.
My favorite thing about the movie was that the makers took care to add wierd little details just for the WTF factor - like those stilt-walking Hieronymus Bosch dudes in the marsh (blink and you miss them).
Overall, Fury Road has to be the most awesome depiction of a divorce ever:
“All this over a family squabble”. 
It was like if one Vin Diesel franchise was mashed together with another Vin Diesel franchise.
I saw this over the weekend, thought it was fantastic. Max was perfect, especially since his most badass moment occurred off screen - when he walked back to the Bullet Farmer’s car, there was an explosion, then he walked back with a sack full of weapons and a steering wheel.
Also if imdb.com is to be believed, Immortan Joe was played by the same actor as Toecutter from the original Mad Max.
I’ve seen it twice and there are few movies I will see more than once in theatre. I love this movie a lot. The action sequences are both completely over the top but somehow have a visceral brutal reality to them.
I think that’s because director George Miller said he wanted to do as much as he possibly could as real stunt effects, rather than simply CGI them all later. So a lot of them have that real look to them because they are real!
For those who want to see some of the stunts as they were filmed, there’s about 18 minutes worth of B-roll in this YouTube clip.
Edit:
Well, it’s not 18 minutes of action, but action interspersed with behind-the-scenes stuff.
Perhaps, but I think it it more than that. There’s something imperfect about the action and that makes it seem more real to me. It looks less choreographed to me, despite being of course ridiculously over-the-top (e.g. polecats). I think it is pretty hard to pass through that eye of the needle, so a real kudos to Miller, Greg van Borssum and Richard Norton (fight choreographers).
It just fits with the brutal nature of the world. In some movies, the perfect near dance like choreography works as well. For example, the first Bourne movie (die shaky cam die from the 2nd onwards). He’s a super spy, fighting other super spies, in a modern setting. It works. This is the Wasteland. It shouldn’t be pretty. It should be brutal. And it works.
I haven’t seen it yet, but from the trailer it appears this is the orangest movie since Traffic. And that was really only half orange.
Just got home after (finally) going to see it today. It was everything i expected and hoped for.
My wife, who came along without being especially keen to see the movie, was blown away. She thought it was awesome.
I loved it, although I didn’t realize the different enemy factions had names. I understood the people in the hedgehog cars were enemies of the Valhalla group, but also thought that the group in the passage was also tenuously connected to the Valhalla group (which is why Furiosa had an agreement with them).
Some plot holes which didn’t bother me, besides the music players (AWESOME!), include:
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I got the impression baby and blonde survived, or at least blonde survived long enough to get baby out… But what happened them? And what happened to the old lady and doc with them? Did a special convoy sent them back to the town? Did they die?
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Speaking of doctors, I really hope they have extra ones in town besides the one who went out with Joe. Furiosa will need him/her.
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They never mention much, but the war boys seem to have had a shortened life span. Tumors and genetic defects, and that’s why they have the blood bags, right?
Loved the movie, and this reviewer expresses what a miracle this move was:
Loved the movie, and this reviewer explains what a miracle this move was:
GIGO, I sympathize with the reviewer you quoted, but I think he starts from a bad premise: AFAIK Mad Max belongs to Dr. Miller. Hollywood had no real say in anything other than who was going to give him the money. At 70 years old and with a string of very successful movies going back more than 30 years, Dr. Miller doesn’t have to take shit from anyone; he can make whatever movies he wants, however he wants.