Every Wednesday, The Picture Show’s Philip Molloy is live in studio with George Hook, taking a look at what’s splashing across the silver and small screen this week. Tune in live at 6.30pm or listen back to the podcasts here.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
As we mentioned last week, Mad Max: Fury Road, one of the biggest films of the summer, goes into Irish cinemas, as part of a mass global release, this weekend.
Made by the septuagenarian Australian director and former medical doctor, George Mille, it is the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise and the first without its original star, Mel Gibson (in this one the title character is played by the English actor Tom Hardy).
Fury Road is a non-stop action extravaganza that employs up to 200 exotically fitted out cars and trucks and tankers and bikes in an elaborate desert chase/duel that goes on for best part of two hours. Not specifically a sequel or reboot, it is simply another instalment in the post-apocalyptic chronicles of Max Rockatansky, the ex-cop who lost his wife and child to a vicious biker gang in the first film and is still tormented by brief, vivid flashbacks of what happened to them.
In Fury Road he is captured by lawless desert raiders called War Boys and carted off to the sandy outpost, The Citadel, where his uninfected blood is harvested as fuel by his captors, who do the bidding of their merciless, masked ruler, Immortal Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Max’s fate seems bleak until he reluctantly befriends Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a steely one-armed tanker driver who has masterminded a getaway for herself and Joe’s five wives. Determined to win the women back, Joe and his minions give chase and the basis for the movie is extablished as Max and Furiosa race across the desolate wasteland to the Green Place, an oasis where they believe they will be safe.
The second of Miller’s Mad Max movies, Road Warrior, had 1,200 cuts – this one has 2,700. Miller has described it as speed reading in the cinema but more than anything it gives you an indication of the pace at which the action moves in Fury Road. The various contesting parties are spread out in a careering procession across the desert with each high-octane sequence shunting hysterically into the other at breakneck speed.
As you can tell, the story in Fury Road is pretty thin; there is little in the way of genuine character depth or back story. Max, Furiosa and their motley band race from Point A to Point B, realise that Point B is not what they hoped and race back to Point A. It is all about the action - then that is truly spectacular.
PITCH PERFECT 2
Pitch Perfect was a musical comedy based on the book Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Capella Glory which was a sleeper hit in 2012. On a budget of $17m it took $113m at the international box office.
The sequel tells of the efforts of the a-capella group the Barden Bellas to regain their status after a concert, attended by President Obama and his wife, collapses due to a costume mishap. There isn’t much story to it but there is a fair amount of quirky humour and some nice turns by Hailee Steinfeld as a new member of the Bellas and John Michael Higgins, as a TV commentator, who keeps making double-entendre comments, about the concert acts.
A ROYAL NIGHT OUT
A Royal Night Out is probably the ‘slightest’ movie I’ve seen in the last year. It is set on VE Day (Victory In Europe Day) in May, I945 and it focuses on the efforts of the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, to
get out of Buckingham Palace for the night to join in the celebrations.
When they do manage to escape, they are separated – Margaret ending up in a brothel and Elizabeth linking up with a young working-class airman (played by Irish actor Jack Reynor). Nothing much happens really and the script is particularly diffident in dealing with the future queen and her relationship.
Co-financed by Isle Of Man Film, it looks and feels muddled and the production design is flat and emaciated.
