More Fury Road Screening Reaction

Right at the end of July, another test screening was held for Mad Max: Fury Road.  This was the second test screening this year and the second version of the movie shown.  The first test screening was shown in April and that was a longer movie, at over two hours.  Here is some more reaction, plucked from social media.

Call me TheAyatollahOfRock’n’Rollah,

I was at the Fury Road screening Wed the 30th in Burbank, as well. I felt the movie was a mixed bag. There’s definitely more to like than not. God knows what the public will make of it.

Some random thoughts:

So, it’s not RW (ROAD WARRIOR) but it comes very close in places (and rest assured, it’s also not Thunderdome). It’s not from a lack of effort on Miller’s part. The same energy and quirkiness is there as the previous ones. There’s not a younger director who could have pulled this off. It’s a beautiful looking movie.

It’s a more obvious sci-fi bent than the previous ones. It doesn’t fit into the original timeline but I had no problem with that. Seemed like it was set way after Thunderdome, which would make sense were Mel here but creates an anomaly with Hardy, who’s younger than Theron. (EDITOR’S NOTE: FURY ROAD does reportedly take place shortly after THUNDERDOME and Gibson was 29 when that came out and Tom Hardy is 36 now so it does fit into the timeline.)

Hardy’s a weird one. He looks the part but he makes some weird choices, acting wise. It’s a pretty different take than Gibson. He won’t be for everyone but I was okay with him. Nobody complains Daniel Craig’s Bond-verse doesn’t fit with any of his predecessors so it’ll require a leap from the purists – of which I’d consider myself one.

The car chase/stuntwork stuff is breathtaking. There’s some stuff here that will have you gasping in terms of the power and scale. Nothing like seeing real cars get battered and smashed, to make you realize CG can’t convince you of some things. Remarkable. No joke.

The first third is a powerhouse. That it had the most f/x work to finish up did nothing to diminish how awesome it’s going to be when it’s done. Rest of the movie can’t quite match those heights once it settles into a chase. Final sequence is great though.

Charlize Theron can do no wrong. She’s awesome in this. The story is primarily Furiosa’s (Theron’s character) and Max gets dragged into it. I didn’t have a problem with it. Max is as much a spectator to the first third as we are but as that first third is so fucking great, I had no complaints.

It’s got a few issues:

There’s some truly awful narration bookending the movie. Doesn’t fit at all. Hopefully that gets changed.

The backbone of the movie’s solid but the movie is so focused on the chase and the visuals that the characters feel thin. Maybe that’ll be enough to carry it, though.

Left the theater really liking it more than loving it but since the screening, I can’t stop thinking about it. Very eager to see it again. Make of that what you will.

I hate to say this but also, be aware of possible plant reports, when it comes to these things.  It happens, in fact it happened once or twice in our comments section for a certain movie (yeah, the guys running the silly bravado action site aren’t as dumb as you think) but I’ll leave it at that.  Fury Road will get a release May 15th, 2015.