Film Review: Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road. Rated MA15+ (strong violence and post-apocalyptic themes). 120 minutes. Directed by George Miller. Screenplay by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathouris.

Verdict: A masterpiece.

It’s been thirty years since we last spent time in the company of George Miller’s ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). It was 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Before that was 1981’s Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and the ground-breaking movie that started it all, 1979’s Mad Max.

So how do you prepare to experience a film that has been thirty years in the making? After the epic disappointment (in similar circumstances) that was Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, there is always a danger that a keenly anticipated film might not have a chance of being as good as we want, or even need, it to be.

Fear not, because Mad Max: Fury Road is, in a word, magnificent. It is, in fact, beyond magnificent. It is a film of such complete, jaw-dropping cinematic mastery in every way that after the first astonishing twenty minutes, you will find yourself wondering where on earth Miller (Happy Feet 1 and 2, Lorenzo's Oil, The Witches of Eastwick) and his superb collaborators have left to go. The answer is, miraculously, everywhere and back again.

The screenplay is all fascinating, lean, cinematic muscle – creating a world where actions speak much louder than words and manage to say a good deal more. Photographed from every impossible angle by veteran cinematographer John Seale, scored majestically by Junkie XL, and edited to breathtaking perfection by Margaret Sixel and Jason Ballantine, Fury Road also boasts visionary work from costume designer Jenny Beavan and production designer Colin Gibson.

The performances from Miller’s outstanding cast are exceptional, but the stand-out is Charlize Theron. In a performance of immense emotional range, it is Theron’s Furiosa who matches the cars, trucks, weaponry, pageantry and gob-smacking stunt work, blowout-for-blowout.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: A Million Ways to Die in the West

A Million Ways to Die in the West. Rated MA15+ (strong sexual references, crude humour and comedic violence). 116 minutes. Directed by Seth MacFarlane. Written by Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild.

Verdict: Seth MacFarlane rides again.

A Million Ways to Die in the West, like many of Hollywood’s recent attempts at comedy, is largely a hit and miss affair. Albert (MacFarlane) is a well-meaning, sheep farmer on the fringes of Old Stump, whose aspirational girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him for the town’s rich and pompous moustachier Foy (Neil Patrick Harris). When he meets Anna (Charlize Theron), the wife of the abusive, murderous outlaw Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), Albert accepts Anna’s offer to help him win back the girl of his dreams.

Best known as the voice of Family Guy’s Peter, Brian and Stewie Griffin, A Million Ways to Die in the West is MacFarlane’s debut in front of the camera (he also produces and directs). And while there is no doubting the appeal of his self-deprecating charm and charisma as a performer, his humour has always been an acquired taste. Ted (2012), which MacFarlane voiced, wrote and directed, went on to become the most commercially successful R-rated comedy in the history of cinema. So it is hardly surprising that he should be given another opportunity to rake in the big box office bucks.

As we have come to expect, there are spectacular examples of bad taste and smut, and the easily-offended advocates of political correctness will be apoplectic with rage in no time at all. Cinematographer Michael Barrett (Ted, Zookeeper) photographs it all beautifully, which helps enormously, and Joel McNeely’s lavish score is great to experience in the cinema.

It’s just a real shame that the endless array of jokes are so cheap, and that the moments of genuine wit and cleverness are so limited.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Snow White and the Huntsman

Snow White and the Huntsman. Rated M (fantasy themes and violence). 127 minutes. Directed by Rupert Sanders. Screenplay by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini.

Verdict: The long and winding road that leads to a palace.

While it is certainly a stunning film to look at, Snow White and the Huntsman takes too many detours and far too much time to wend its way through what is a very familiar story of a princess feted to rise up against a murderous Queen and regain the throne she was ruthlessly denied.

Similarly to Tarsem Singh’s gorgeous looking Snow White-lite take earlier this year (Mirror, Mirror) Sanders’ equally-sumptuous affair boasts Dominic Watkins’ (The Bourne Supremacy, United 93) extravagant production design and Colleen Atwood’s (Alice in Wonderland, Memoirs of a Geisha) picture-perfect costumes. Melbourne-born Greig Fraser (Caterpillar Wish, Bright Star, Let Me In) cements his international reputation with outstanding cinematography that captures every essence of the film’s many challenging and constantly changing moods and locations.

The writers and Sanders, making his feature film debut, make what turns out to be a near-fatal error by mistaking ‘long’ for ‘epic’. What they risk in the process is undermining the film’s many great qualities, which other than in the design departments and some inventive sequences (especially the scenes set at the lakeside commune where the once-beautiful women have fled from the evil queen’s life-draining hunger for their beauty), are the spirited performances and a flawless visual tapestry of creative splendour.

Chris Hemsworth (Thor) does his best work to date as the grieving Huntsman, while Charlize Theron (Prometheus, Monster) goes for broke from start to finish and never misses a trick. Kristen Stewart (Twilight’s Bella) flexes her acting muscles in ways that have not been required of her in the Twilight franchise, and the fact that we never really care about her fate is the fault of the wandering and didactic screenplay – not her spirited charge through the leading role.

The actors who play the dwarfs (including Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Nick Frost) have been digitally manipulated to the size of a dwarf which works for a moment – before you begin to realise that the film is almost beginning to sink with too much trickery at the expense of being something we might have actually been a good deal more engaged by. Apparently, and there’s no prizes, there’s going to be a sequel. Please let it be over in half the time. If that.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Prometheus

Prometheus. Rated M (moderate science fiction violence and a medical procedure). 124 minutes. Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof.

Verdict: An abysmal script sinks any hope of the masterpiece we might have expected.

With the exception of The Avengers, it is difficult to imagine a film that has been so keenly anticipated as Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus. For months, pre-release expectations have been whipped up into a frenzy with leaked clips, photos and gossip – all of which risked doing the film a great disservice. Could Prometheus be anywhere near as fantastic as we had been manipulated into believing it might be?

It is 2089. Archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover an ancient star map that they interpret as an invitation for contact from a pre-human race of supreme beings. Three years later, at the invitation of the ageing Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), Shaw and Holloway join the crew of the scientific exploration vessel Prometheus to travel to the distant moon LV-223 where their creationist theories will be challenged beyond their comprehension.

Spaihts and Lindelof’s (TV’s Lost, and 2011’s turkey Cowboys & Aliens) screenplay boasts a hapless mediocrity – and if there is a sci-fi cliché or another superior movie’s highpoint to be exploited, they waste no time in doing so. The abysmal script is only made worse when compared to the exceptional work of production designer Arthur Max (Robin Hood, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, Se7en) and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Alice in Wonderland, Dark City).

The cast, which includes Charlize Theron as corporate whip Meredith Vickers, Michael Fassbender as David the Android, and Idris Elba as the captain of the Prometheus, all do their very best to keep a straight face – possibly realising that at least they’ll certainly look great. Ms Rapace and Mr Marshall-Green both bring real chemistry to their roles, with Rapace in particular, effortlessly rising to the silly demands required of her in the film’s panic-stricken second half.

Shot – spectacularly – in 3D, Mr Scott has certainly made an ambitious return to the universe he so lovingly crafted for Alien in 1979. What is even more extraordinary is why he went there with a script that never manages to stand up to the grand themes of the origins of humanity he obviously wants to explore. And if the heavily sign-posted sequel eventuates (Alien aficionados will know that the crew of the Nostromo discovered a derelict spaceship on LV-426, not Prometheus’s LV-223), we can only hope he goes there with new writers.

Pictured: Logan Marshall-Green, Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender quite possibly dreading their next line of dialogue in Prometheus.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.