Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (3/5 Stars)

When telling a story, there are details that need to be explained and others that don’t, and yet others that seem like they should be explained, but actually, not really. And some things it is best to not provide an explanation for at all.

Perhaps the best non-explanation of a thing in the history of moviedom is Back to the Future’s treatment of time travel. Doc Brown points to what looks like (and is) three neon tubes and explains “this is what makes time travel possible, the flux capacitor”....aaand that’s it for the movie’s explanation of time travel. But my point is that this is the best way to explain time travel because time travel is impossible, so there is no point in spending an inordinate amount of time trying to justify it. We’re trying to watch a movie here. In this movie it’s possible because of the flux capacitor and we’re moving on.

The Mad Max series of movies (until this last one) are very good examples of movies not explaining things that are best not explained. We are told that the plot takes place in some future dystopian wasteland where nothing grows and the most prized resource in the world is gasoline. Gasoline is important because seemingly every technology but the internal combustion engine has vanished off the face of the earth giving armed stockcar and motorcycle gangs military superiority. And before you can really question how likely that scenario is, here are 90 minutes of awesome car chases.

A specific example of something not being explained in the last movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, was the missing arm of the female protagonist Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). She shows up as a highly capable warrior who can drive and shoot and fight and she doesn’t have her left arm. No explanation is given or attempted. What did the audience think of this? Well, if they were like me, they would have just assumed she was either born without it (this is a toxic wasteland) or she lost it doing something badass.

In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, we are treated to the explanation for how her arm was lost. And now that I have experienced both knowing and not knowing, I can tell you that I prefer not knowing how the arm was lost. In fact, consider this alternate take on the Furiosa movie. The movie starts with a two-armed child. She gets kidnapped by bikers and grows up at the Citadel. Later in the movie, as the character switches actresses from child to Anya Taylor-Joy (late 20s now), she is reintroduced without her arm, the idea being that she lost it somehow, and there is still no explanation given. Think about it, wouldn’t that be kind of awesome.

There is way too much explaining going on in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Just look at the run time, 2 hours 38 minutes. Max Mad: Road Warrior from 1982 was a brisk 96 minutes. Mad Max: Fury Road was the longest of the movies at 2 hours, but still its plot was deceptively simple. That movie starts with a car chase that goes one way and then they turn around and go back to where they started. It’s all over within a few days of movie time.

Here we have a plot heavy movie for the first time and much of it is not the kind of plot that we line up to see a Mad Max movie for, that is, it doesn’t involve car chases in the desert. Sorely missing is the exhilaration of Nicholas Hoult’s performance as the delirious and excitable War Boy Nux in the Fury Road movie (“What a Lovely Day!”). There is a notable big rig fight with a bad guy called the Octoboss, but that is too small a part in this movie, which is full of too many things that mean something. Since the world is impossible, it is best not to dwell too much on what makes it work. I’m not sure I need to understand the political machinations between the Citadel, the Bullet Farm, and Gas Town.

Did Anya Taylor-Joy do a good job? That is hard to say. She certainly wasn’t memorable in the way that Charlize Theron was. Then again, she is not given much to work with. She has next to no lines, and didn’t do anything that would establish her as an action star. We have Chris Hemsworth chewing up the scenery, but there is either not enough of him, or just too much of other things.

I was very impressed by the look of Mad Max: Fury Road when I saw it all the way back in 2015. I had a similar experience watching Furiosa this year that I just had watching Dune 2. That is, I was less impressed by the visuals. I wonder whether it is because the world is not being introduced to me for the first time or because I saw the movie at home on a smaller screen. It is hard to say, though I do believe that the action in Furiosa is inferior to Fury Road. Something about it, well, I just know sometimes when I am watching a CGI car crash or a CGI blood spatter, and it isn't exciting. I wish the creators just figured out some way to do actions scenes without it. Ultimately, CGI is a crutch not a solution. Just watch Road Warrior. I am continually amazed by how well those 1982 action scenes work with no computers at all to rely on. They just have to do a little bit less in frame and employ a little more creativity.

Three Thousand Years of Solitude (4/5 Stars)

 

“Three Thousand Years of Longing” is a small movie with big trappings. Like George Miller’s last outing “Mad Max: Fury Road” it is a demonstration of the benefits of the last two decades revolution in cheaper digital movie-making. The plot is too alien for a mainstream audience: an aging scholar of ancient Mesopotamian culture (Tilda Swinton) comfortable in her solitary life, by happenchance and/or fate finds a bottle in Istanbul thrift shop which contains an ancient djinn (Idris Elba), or as you may have heard in a Disney movie, a genie. He grants her a wish, but she refuses to make one. She is well versed in myths and genies and believes that making wishes is not wise. Trickster genies abound and, well, she does not need anything. To convince her to make a wish, this djinn delves into its lives and loves of the past three thousand years. We meet King Solomon, spend time in the harem of the Ottoman sultan, and attain knowledge of the universe. Imagine if this movie had been made twenty years ago. First of all, it wouldn’t have been, at least not with this level of sophistication. It would have been far too expensive a gamble for a storyline that is inherently so niche. (I believe I called “Mad Max: Fury Road” a ‘niche blockbuster’. This is even more so). If it had been, I swear it would have been ugly. There would be no budget for the expanse required. All would be darkness, robes, and sandals.

As it is, we live now, and “Three Thousand Years of Longing” feels like the movie it should be. Much of it takes place in a hotel room in Istanbul in which Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba carry on a long debate amidst flashbacks of the djinn's long life and misfortunes. You could do much worse than spend a few hours listening to the back and forth between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, two of our most talented actors. Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as scholar of foreign and ancient knowledge. Idris Elba it can be noted, is Black. Really, an ancient djinn should be of the middle-eastern persuasion. No matter. He has been appropriately cast. He he has the body frame and the intelligence to pull of an ancient djinn (as opposed to say, a Will Smith) and I can’t really think of anybody else I would like to see in the part (honorable mention, Robin Williams for the parody).

Idris Elba tells three stories. The first takes place a long time ago and is pretty straightforward. The djinn is advisor to the Queen of Sheba that falls for King Solomon. I won’t get into it too deep but it ends with the genie being entrapped in a bottle and thrown into the ocean. The second story involves the genie being found by a young concubine in the harem of the Ottoman Sultan. What makes this story interesting is that the concubine actually wishes for something someone of her stature and education would wish for at that time period. Given her narrow view of the world, she wishes to carry the son of the prince as it would automatically catapult her in social standing. And with another dose of realism, she doesn’t fully understand why this might be a dangerous wish in a place where political power is directly related to bloodlines. After some palace intrigue, the genie finds himself in a bottle in at the bottom of the sea again. The third story is the best and legitimately interesting. The genie is found by the youngest wife of an aging merchant. He keeps her in a tower and doesn’t let her out of the house. What she wishes for is the knowledge of the universe. This is granted to her not by some Matrix mind-meld, but by the genie scouring the earth and bringing back to her the best scientific texts. This is the type of woman a djinn could fall in love with and he does. I won’t tell you how this one turns out.

The stories are engaging enough as they are being told, but the movie itself finishes with a bit of an anti-climax. You see Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba are actually quite reasonable people so ultimately there is not much of a conflict. Actually the largest controversy in our modern times involves her taking the djinn back to London where two of her nosy old lady neighbors take exception. Why they do this doesn’t make much sense. They make general xenophobic points about culture and what not. Actually, the old neighbors have a point given that the genie is from a place of polygamy and harems, (which might be offensive to the modern woman?). Except the old ladies don’t know that Idris Elba is a djinn, so they just come off as having a prejudice against black people. But the genie shouldn’t be played by a black guy and the movie works best if that fact is quietly ignored. In any event, the whole thing seems to resolve rather quickly once they get a good look at him and realize he's Idris Elba. I believe, yes I believe you could say that everyone lived happily ever after.