I wanted to love Pitch Perfect 2 but not as much as I wanted to love the new Mad Max movie. Third movie of the week, Unlimited card paying for itself this month.
This is loaded with spoilers, if you haven't seen it yet, don't read any further.
I am going to start with the bad, because there is some.
The story is a bit sketchy. It only makes sense on the most superficial level. There are much bigger holes than the previous versions around bullets and fuel and food and generally how to survive the nuclear apocalypse.
Tom Hardy maybe says 20 lines in the film, but manages to go through about 10 different accents. South African, Australian, 'Bane', Welsh,....
Next level down, the flashbacks that Max has through the film aren't explained. The internet has tried to claim that they are of his daughter, but this doesn't match with the canon of the movies where his child is killed as a baby. So I prefer the explanation that we are missing a story somewhere and that we might cover this in a future movie.
The superhot 'wives' are all made up like they just walked off a fashion shoot. And this is further exaggerated beyond any sense of realism when you consider the Zoe Kravitz is the 'ugly' one of the 5 of them. Even after they start running around the dessert dodging flamethrowers and jumping between vehicles there is never a hair out of place.
And from there we are onto the good bits.
The cinematography is amazing. The colours in the night scenes especially show off the directors skills. And some of the visions, which owe an awful lot to Terry Gilliam, are fantastically portrayed. The travelling rockband giving an excuse for ebb and flow of the thumping soundtrack during the chase scenes is borderline genius.
The stunts are absolutely incredible. The film is 2 hours long and maybe 1hr 45 of that is basically a massively long car chase / battle. The CGI is minimal and that is pretty obvious. I really hope the sic-fi directors of the future watch this and are reminded how much better the effects look if you actually do them.
Charlize Theron is brilliant. The one-armed thing is a bit weird but it works well enough in the context of the story. She is the real lead here. She steals every scene from Tom Hardy, even when she is dying.
The language is very clever. There are a lot of jargon terms used but they are mostly self-explanatory and easy enough to keep up with.
The iconic car! The last of the V8 Interceptors is back, and it comes and goes throughout the movie. But you are always given a couple of quick shots to spot it before Max points out that it is his car.
And all of the other cars and trucks are fantastic. The effort that the mechanical team have gone to in making this film is clear from the start and continues through the whole movie. Every vehicle has a huge amount of personalisation to reflect the driver.
What isn't shown! There is a section in the night where Max wanders off in the darkness and returns later with someone else blood on him. And we simply don't see what he did. But that in itself makes it even more clear about how vicious max is willing to be in pursuit of his redemption. He is willing to do things so far beyond acceptable that we can't be shown them in a film where someone else has their face ripped off!
To be frank I loved it. Can't wait for the next one.
Overall I am going to give it 9 out of 10.
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