Do you need to have watched the original movies to understand what's going on?
No. In fact, if you're doped on a respectable dose of Thorazine and you have an IQ above 60 you would be able to follow the plot. Saw it tonight. The Rot.Tomatoes rating on this movie has gone from a 90 to an 80 in the last few days. I figure I'd rate the movie a 65ish.
Positives:
Great visual effects, excellent pace, good peril, excellent acting by Max, Nooks, and Furiosa, great scenery, and overall excellent moviemaking style. Some people didn't like the Max character - I thought it was well done, and appropriate for a "mad" - meaning crazy - guy.
Negatives:
[SPOILERS BELOW HERE]
The movie was 80% chase scenes. So "action," sure, but it got to the point where I was checking my watch. How much chase scene is too much chase scene? 1.5 hours was, as it turns out, past my limit.
The plot was this - woman escapes from desert oasis and population center with several slaves, meets Max along the way, Max convinces her to return to population center. That's it. Everything else in the movie is scene to scene filler and visual effects.
The Plot was a hole. I don't mean it had plot holes. I mean it was a hole. As in, it was goofier and more unrealistic than your average Power Puff girls episode. Here are just 2 of many, many examples of things that didn't use the physics of our world: 1. Lead says that she and a few other women are going to take motorcycles into the salt flats (the unknown) and ride for 160 days. WTF? What about food and water and fuel? They had enough provisions for a day or so. That's it. Were math and common sense both lost in the apocalypse? The bad guys spent 1.5 hours trying every technique imaginable to stop the truck. Why not just shoot out/blow out the tires? One scene they did have spike strips. Just a few. They didn't work. Instead, they had an excavator bucket mounted on a truck, and guys on 30 foot fishing poles dangling in the air off of vehicles driving 70 miles per hour. One last one - truck gets stuck in the mud. They eventually use a winch to get it out. The winch was tethered to a barkless dead tree that was in a muddy area and was about 18" in diameter. The truck probably weighed 60,000 pounds. Not only did the winch not pull the tree out of the ground, but it was only with Max holding the tree to help prevent it from pulling over and with the lead female pushing - yes, pushing - against the truck that they were able to free the truck. Come on. Can't resist - one more. Desert oasis has leader's lair built high up in a butte. He has three giant water pipes that stick out of the side of the butte? Why on why? Why would anybody take the time and energy to make and install giant pipes that simply poke out of the mountain? Because it's a great visual effect! Pointing this crap out only because some people were poking holes in Age of Ultron's plot!! It was a comic book movie! Plot holes are the basis of all comic book characters.
Pointing these things out only to make clear that this is a fast-n-furious type movie where everything is goofy and you have to completely let yourself go in order to enjoy it. Kind of like any comic book movie, dumb and dumber, and so on.
Gave it a 65% because I was mildly entertained. Would not watch a second time.
If you liked the FandF franchise and car chases, you might love this movie. In any event, unless you hate car chases or violence, you should be at least entertained.
