Dear Max, An Advice to a Future Film Aficionado Who Will Come to Appreciate the Greatness of “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) and the Badness of “Armageddon” (1998)(Part I of II)

Dear Max,

In thanks for so graciously hosting me for a week with your family, I’ve penned this letter to you, wrapped up in a review of “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), in order to give you some advice regarding your future as a movie-lover.

To start, I have little doubt that you’ll come to love movies.

You, your dad and I went to see “Dune: Part Two” (2024) in iMax together, and you have seen the obscure (by general public standards) SF film “The Fifth Element” (1997). Neither are normal in your young age, and both are undoubtedly a product of your dad, but regardless, you are well on your way to becoming a movie aficionado.

It’s important to know this because, in the not-so-distant future, there will come a day when your friends will want to go see movies with you, and you’ll say yes because you enjoy watching movies.

But then you’ll discover, you and your friends have very different takes on movies.

You see, the movies you’ll end up watching with them will be along the lines of what you see in the filmography of Michael Bay. Your friends will love these movies because, well, Michael Bay is quite unapologetic about making movies geared towards teenage boys, but you’re very likely to find many, if not most, of these movies to be quite bad.

You likely won’t be able to put into words why you feel that way. After all, Michael Bay’s films are rightly criticized for lack of plot and even less character development, but not having a plot can easily be said of “Mad Max: Fury Road” too, even though it’s a great film.

So what makes the difference?

“Mad Max” is a very simple movie. It tells a story about Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who’s been enslaved in the world run by cult leader Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). When Immortan Joe sends her to trade water for petrol and ammunition, she tries to fee with his five wives. Upon seeing her flee, he naturally sends his entire army after her, and the rest of the movie is a chase and battle sequence, taking place between the truck she’s escaping in and the armored cars that are chasing her.

Behind all the simplicity, though, there’s a lot of art.

(Continued to Part II)