Mad Max: Fury Road

[totchipanda]

...was AWESOME!

I didn't have a lot of interest when I saw the first trailers, thinking something like "oh another pointless testosterone-fueled car-chase fest... These things never consider practical things like WHERE DO YOU GET GAS?!"

And then it was coming out, and MRAs were up in arms because the movie was more about female characters than male ones?

Suddenly MUCH more interested...

Saw it tonight. I would say that the feminist angle can be overlooked if one chooses to do so. But in the meantime, the rest of us get female characters who are not there to be a man's reward. YEESSSSSS.

Let's discuss the awesome things about this movie:

• The gas thing gets a nod. They get gas from Gastown. That is enough explanation for me (IMDB trivia states they trade it for water with the Citadel)
  
• Let's face it, a big part of this franchise is car chases and explosions. There were plenty. I used a free movie ticket and I was not disappointed into thinking I had "wasted" it (see also: Pacific Rim, whereupon I paid/used free ticket to see giant mecha smashing aliens)
  
• FURIOSA IS THE BEST. She's missing part of an arm and she's important enough to Immortan Joe to be trusted with a water/gas exchange. Which is how she also steals his wives and rips his face off. Literally.
  
• Technically speaking, her title should be Imperatrix, but fuck it, Imperator is well-deserved! (Wiki says imperator roughly translates to "commander" and is the root word for "emperor". Carry on.)
  
• The other female characters are intended to be "eye candy", being Immortan Joe's wives and lovely and important enough to him to keep locked up, but that doesn't stop them from being badasses in their own ways. Especially Splendid Angharad, who A: has an awesome name, B: uses herself as a shield for Furiosa, C: hangs off the side of the war rig to provide further shielding, and D: DOES ALL OF THIS WHILE PREGNANT. Lady, here is your bad-ass card. (She put herself into harm's way because she knew Immortan Joe would almost literally kill himself before he let her come to harm.)
  
• Despite that, the wives and indeed the whole film could have been a hell of a lot more sexist, so even though I wouldn't hold this up as a shining paragon of feminism, I really appreciate the work that went into keeping it from turning into a mudhole.
  
• Seriously, Furiosa. She literally kicks ass and she could probably shoot the nosehairs off a man's face at 300 yards at night during a new moon. Damn.
  
• The ladies motorcycle gang! Aw yiss.
  
• Tom Hardy is pleasing to my eyes.
  
• Unexpected feels train!
  
• Immortan Joe is like, grossly and disgustingly creepy. He'd be like that no matter what, but the make-up team did a really good job here. Good work, Weta. My skin is still crawling.
  
• There's a romance sub-plot if you squint and tilt your head to the side (not recommended while wearing 3D glasses) and it is not the main characters. I'm down for romance subplots but I hate when they're shoe-horned in (looking at you, XXX), so this one is easily ignored if not to one's taste.
  

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but this is a really fun summer movie where one does not need to think about anything and also not have rampant sexism slapped in our faces. YAY!