Mad Max: Fury Road

By: Robert Murphy

The post apocalyptic genre is a place many film makers have tried to go to and that is for one simple reason, Mad Max. Some thirty odd years ago the first of the three films came out and set the standard for this type of film with its desolate and society crumbling idea for the future of the human race. We would all basically become animals trying to make our way through desolate and grungy looking scenes and I loved that. Now, George Miller returns after three decades to the wastes and the character he started all those years ago but he receives a new face with Tom Hardy. This isn’t a bad thing as Tom fits the strong and silent Max character well as he now faces a new sort of danger than the one he had before. Desperately trying to forget the mistakes of his past, Max is traveling from place to place hoping to escape the ghosts that now haunt him but it seems the world just can’t leave him alone. 

Max is no longer a warrior who travels from place to place trying to scrounge up whatever fuel he can scavenge, no now his character really wants nothing to do with the outside world. Running away from the past is his main concern at this point as people and faces haunt the stoic Max to this day, all the people he couldn’t save and the ones that couldn’t survive this harsh new world. He has frankly gone just as mad as the rest of the world around him. The rest of the remaining human race are still ragged and tattered but now they no longer run around looking for power or fuel rather they come to the new found source of all power, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, a former bad guy in the first Mad Max film). Joe has created an empire out of the wasteland that currently remains of the world by controlling one of the few remaining sources of dependable water. He controls those underneath him and the men that fight for him by supplying them shelter and promises of immortality. His army of pasty skinned soldiers all believe that they will die and be reborn again in Valhalla by following his commands and doing his bidding. They all attack with no fear of what will happen if they die as it appears Immortan Joe knows just how to control the feeble minded masses.

What causes all the trouble for the story though comes when Joe's second in command steals a very precious commodity of his.  Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) leaves on the scheduled trip to secure fuel for Immortan Joe's machines but she secretly has her own plans and has made away with all of Joe's beautiful wives. She is honestly just as much a main character as Max though as she is both intricate to the plot but she also supplies some of the hard hitting action as well. The one armed Furiosa commands a mighty rig that only she knows how to drive, she is able to hold her own and take a hit like no other woman and she has plenty of skills with guns, knives and fists. She hopes to free the former enslaved wives of Joe and take them to her former home which is now run by a few remaining biker grannies who really know how to put up a fight on their own too. Once Joe finds out about all of this, that's when things really kick off.

Almost immediately the somewhat decrepit Joe sends out every available War Boy and heavy hitting vehicles to retrieve his stolen property. This leads to some of the most spectacular CGI stunts and massive car chase that I have ever seen. The makeshift vehicles in Joe's command vary from supped up mustangs to giant war rigs and even a traveling bard car complete with massive speakers and a flame wielding guitar player on bungee wires. If you think that was a mouthful to read wait until you see just how crazy it is on screen. All the vehicles are decked out to the maximum with all sorts of weaponry like flamethrowers and machines gun. You then have the crazed War Boys swinging from car to car by paper thin poles as well and it truly is quite a sight to behold. It's this madness, the crescendo of the music and the vibration coming off of the cars and explosions that will have your eyes glued to the screen. It has been awhile since I was on the edge of my seat for an action movie such as this an I guess it took the return of George Miller and his Mad Max to do it.

 This also happens to be where Max comes back into the picture after being initially captured in the first few scenes of the movie. A bright eyed and thoroughly brain washed War Boy by the name of Nux (Nicholas Hoult) is using Max as a sort of blood donor after being previously injured. He comes into play later after questioning Immortan Joe and all he has stood for. In the meantime Max has sort of felt like a back seat driver for most of the movie and that works out in all honesty because his story is more of a quiet one this time around and he wants to go unnoticed. This still doesn't stop him from tearing through the never ending onslaught of Joe's men and being an all around solid character, perhaps one of my favorite scenes is when he mysteriously walks off from the rig and you hear some brief explosions in the background. Max returns a bit bloodied with an full arsenal of weapons around his shoulders and only utters at most one word while the flaming wreckage of what occurred laid behind him.

Fury Road excels at creating an absolutely out of this world post apocalyptic action movie. Once the ball starts rolling in the story there is just no stopping it and that is what a great action movie needs to do, it supplies over the top stunts, intriguing characters and doesn't fall into the the slumps of what all normal action movies do today. Out of the wreckage and chaos that ensues throughout this Mad Max sequel, you get a truly beautiful experience.  

Good:

- The sheer amount of insane stunts and action

- Tom Hardy's Max may take a backseat for some of the film but he still hits insanely hard

- The incredible world that is built and presented before you

- Theron and her portrayal of Furiosa 

Bad:

- Keep on scrolling, nothing to see here

Scully Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Transporter (Season One)

Zach Goodier

First off, Transporter doesn’t star our favorite transporter, and he isn’t driving a BMW (he likes Audis, now). So, is there any hope for this TV spin-off of the original action flick? We have Frank Martin taking on different jobs every episode, and he generally runs into complications along the way, which usually land an attractive girl in his lap, often literally. Then, cue exciting car chase with lots of engines roaring and tires squealing, and then he delivers the package, loses the girl so he can be ready for the one next episode, then go home until next episode.

The BMW phase is over, Frank has moved on to Audi now. 

That about sums up the entire premise of the show. Frank relies on his contact, Catarina, to organize and set up jobs for him, and she helps him navigate along the route and advises him when she picks on trouble from traffic, news, or police channels. All in all, this does feel like a realistic, intelligent setup that lends a bit more realism to the entire thing. Inspector Tarconi also returns, but usually not in a significant role.

At least you'll recognize one face here.

Other than Frank, there isn’t all the much going on for characters, aside from some side stuff with Catarina, and a group that is keeping tabs on Frank. But mostly, about everything going on is copied from the film. Car chases and fist fights are commonplace, and Frank is almost always working for shady characters with questionable intentions and often dangerous cargo.

Frank has some attractive support coming in from Carla

I’d say this show is great if you really couldn’t break away from the film, and love everything it did. However, it doesn’t really add anything to the formula, and it tries to stick to the formula likely out of fear of straying from it and upsetting fans, but it makes the entire series feel repetitive with a very slow lead-in to the actual threat Frank faces. This means you won’t see much that you haven’t seen before, just put on fast-forward to fit in an hour-long episode. Including Inspector Tarconi does lend some legitimacy to the series, but not having Jason Statham does make everything seem somewhat awkward at first, as they act like there is no change to speak of. After a while, though, you can just role with it, but this never really feels like anything more than an attempt to copy the original film.

Good:

-Fun car chases.

-Heart-pounding action.

-An original cast member came back to lend some legitimacy to the series, even if it’s a minor role.

Bad:

-Doesn’t add to the formula.

-Episodes feel rushed in terms of pacing to fit a 1 hour time slot.

-Conspicuous lack of Jason Statham in a very Jason Statham style feature.

Scully Rating: 6.0 out of 10

Aquarius

By: Robert Murphy

At the height of the peace movement from the 1960s to 1970s there would be one man whose name would go down in infamy and his name was Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony). He and his "family" would end up going on a spree of murders that would inspire an entire generation of fear for people. But before all this Manson would appear to be nothing but a small time peddler in a world with so much more going on. Black rights movements, protests against government sanctioned wars and police brutality swept over the nation and one man walked the line between good cop and bad cop like no other. Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny) is an LAPD officer with a troubled past and even more troubling future as he is set to the task of recovering one of Manson's latest runaways, the daughter of a prominent Los Angeles lawyer Emma Karn (Emma Dumont). Along the way you will see him bust a few heads and walk the very dangerous line of right and wrong in a time where the two were practically invisible, the key is to actually have a good moral compass underneath.

David Duchovny's return to television is one that I was eager to get behind, I was an avid follower of his exploits on Californication and in quite a few ways his role in Aquarius shares many of the same characteristics. Detective Hodiak is a former lush and somewhat of a womanizer that has tried to turn a new leaf in one form or another after seeing what kind of life he was living. This however doesn't stop him from bending a few rules to get confessions from criminals or even beating the crap out of potential informants. Police brutality being something that is deeply overlooked during this time as it was something that cops felt criminals deserved. After a few episodes though the layers start to peel away from Hodiak's bad boy persona and you start to see more of a free thinking type than you would have expected. This being a big deal for the supposedly straight edged look he has for most of the show and most would view him a suit or narc the instant he walked into a room. But, his character actually has a lot going for him and respect for all kind of individuals during a time where anyone who wasn't white seemed to be in the wrong or on the outside looking in on the American dream.

This is an aspect I felt that Aquarius gets into extremely well. Everyone knows about the Black Panther and civil rights movements that were brewing around this time and how people of color were being treated now that the walls were starting to break down and everyone was starting to coexist. Well, trying to coexist I should say since plenty of hate and superiority complexes were still brewing. It is especially tough on Hodiak's new partner Brian Shafe (Grey Damon) who is the departments free spirit hippie cop. An odd combo but one that I enjoyed since he had an interesting interpretation on both sides of law being someone who hates the police brutality and their abuse of power but still wanting to serve and protect. His character we find out isn't so popular on the home front as he's married to a black woman and they share child together in a community mostly surround by white neighbors. The abuse for his character runs deep but one of the most satisfying moments comes when Hodiak busts a few heads to find out who threw a rock through Brian's window.

There is also other issues that arise that I feel were presented fairly well but mostly fall under the same category. Issues with race and sexual orientation are laced throughout the story and in many cases make Hodiak a more compelling character each time they come up. In the episode entitled "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" Hodiak helps a fellow detective in trying to stop a local paper from revealing that he in fact from Cuba because it will ruin his career and his family. Such a tiny thing that you would never cause a huge problem now is a monumental disaster as the man never told his wife who he was and never told any other detective in the department for fear of being mocked and not given good cases. Landmines like this are layered throughout the story and it gets me wrap up into just what sort of era this was and all the hardships there were to have if you weren't the "right" color, race or even gender.

Now at this point you may be asking yourself why I haven't brought up the supposed star of the show Charles Manson and that is because he really doesn't ever come off as the shows center. Much of what the show does and does well is create a cop drama about Hodiak with scenes about Manson set about here and there to include him in the story. It's not that he is portrayed poorly or anything, far from it, as I felt that former Game of Thrones actor Gethin Anthony does a great job of playing the deeply deranged and yet intoxicating Manson. The issue is that his story just never pops and he becomes a background character that never does anything so sinister as his infamous name would suggest. He is frankly just a name in someone else's story during the entire first season of Aquarius which is a big deal considering how the show was marketed as a drama about the life of Manson leading up to what he has done. Mostly what his character does well is give the other characters in the show some drive and moment to move forward such as Hodiak and another character who is so intricate to the plot that I refuse to spoil in this review. 

What also doesn't help the case for Manson though is Emma. This innocent little runaway was probably just looking for a bit of fun when she runs away with Manson and his little following of females and that works out fine for the first few episodes. Emma Dumont does a good job of playing the china doll character whose spent most of her life trapped in a cage wishing her parents would stop fighting and pay more attention to her. However, once she starts to see Manson for the mad man that he is and all that he does she doesn't do anything about it and often her scene involve her blankly starring into the camera like "Oh my God, he really did that." Her actions make less and less sense throughout the series when she flips flops between going along with Manson and not going along with him. Two moments in particular were confusing for me such as the first time Manson has her have sex with someone to curry favor with them. She acts shocked but the next time we see her she's raiding the guys fridge and acting like it didn't matter. Her character was just plain confusing and made the Manson story pop even less.

What Aquarius really should have ended up being is a nice period piece about cops during this era. David Duchovny plays a great Detective Hodiak who does many things wrong but often it is for the right reasons and in many ways he is a cop that I feel is needed in this time for his forward thinking attitude. We also have the many topics that are broken into such a gender equality, civil rights and homosexuality. It isn't presented delicately and that is a good thing because this era wasn't delicate and people didn't tip toe around what they had to say. Where things fall apart however is with the shows supposed main focus Charles Manson whose stories never quite felt that relevant to the what was going on. I was happy to watch the show in it's entirety though and not have to wait each week for it to come out, if I had I feel like my opinion of it may have been different. Getting to see Hodiak's change as a character kept me wanting more, along with the key issues and period points presented throughout.

Good:

- David Duchovny as Sam Hodiak

- Issues of race, gender and color all were compelling parts of the story

- A great cop drama more than a series about Charles Manson

Bad:

- Charles Manson's storyline never pops out and shouldn't it? The shows about him

- Emma Karn is never the driving force for the story that she is meant to be

Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10