Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is very bleak and gruesome. I saw it in the theater with my mom and my ex-girlfriend who's now my friend. I was literally afraid while watching it that I wouldn't be the same for at least the next few days. My mom actually wanted to leave and go home, but she didn't because I didn't want to (I'm a trooper when it comes to watching movies. I've only ever stopped watching 2 or 3 movies before the end in my life. One was Gummo, one was The Usual Suspects, and one was the live action remake of Aladdin). My ex's only comment after the movie was over that it was "too much."

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of, if I recall correctly, 98%, so I guess their critics are too "sophisticated" to bothered by depraved gore and figurative darkness and just appreciate the movie for its artistic merit.

And it does have a lot of artistic merit. For example, a couple of the actors/characters they picked and designed for the leaders of the Citadel were aesthetically perfect and striking/mesmerizing. And they seemed to put a lot of effort into designing the many, many ways in which ad hoc machines shredded and otherwise destroyed dozens of antagonists in rapid succession.

Another thing the movie had going for it, speaking purely of aesthetics, was that the main character was as cute as you can possibly get: she was played by Anya Taylor-Joy. 

And speaking of actors and characters, Chris Hemsworth's portrayal of Dr. Dementus (the main antagonist of the film) was really good. I mean, the character was totally original and nothing like anything else Hemsworth has ever played and fit well into the movie. In fact, I literally didn't even recognize that it was Chris Hemsworth throughout the whole film; I only found out after it was over when my mom mentioned it.

One other character I appreciated from this movie was Praetorian Jack, the truck driver. He was very cool in how smoothly and nonchalantly he handled all the various life-threatening intrusions onto his truck by the opposing gang. Though it wasn't as pat as you would expect from most movies: at the risk of including a spoiler, he did end up losing the truck in the end.

But, to go back to the aesthetic qualities of the Citadel leaders, what really mesmerized me the most about this movie was the getup of Immortan Joe, the main leader. I mean, it was such a perfect depiction of sickness, especially sickness in power, and the artificial sustaining of an improper life. Everything from his fierily protruding white hair to his pale face with stark darkness around his eyes to his mouth-covering machinery to, especially, his abdomen cover with perfect contours and organic patterns of off-white and pus yellow coloration, worked together to create a penetrating ensemble. Oh, and his artificially boomy voice fit into that well, too.

But regarding the degree of overall disturbingness of this movie, I've never seen another one that compares. The most bleak movie I'd seen before this one was Pi (which I hated, not only because it was bleak and black-and-white, but because the plot was super thin and the ideas contained therein were trite and irrational, but mostly because it was bleak af), and that move didn't even come close to making me worry about my own mental health.

One redeeming thing that can be said about this movie, though, is that it had a positive ending (because of course it would), and what happens to the antagonist at the end is...interesting, to say the least.

Another overall feature of this movie, which may be for better or for worse, is that it was fairly unrealistic for a variety of reasons. I suppose it has something of a fantasy-film streak, if I'm using that term right.

Regarding the quality of the overall plot/story, I thought it was okay, minus the extremely bleak aspects.

So, in the end, if I could go back and choose knowing what I know now, would I choose to have ever seen this movie, or not? And what rating would I give it? To be honest, I'm not sure. I suppose all impressive experiences have value. Or at least most of them. And as for the rating, uhhh...I'm thinking either a 1 or a 2 (scale unknown). 1 because it was so harsh on my mind and I hated it, but 2 because it had a fair amount of artistic/aesthetic merit, which adds to my overall life experience. 

Should you go and see this movie? Tbh, I guess probably; most people probably aren't as squeamish as I am.

Deadpool & Wolverine

This is a great movie, but unlike most great action movies, there are zero slow and boring parts. The plot was quick-paced all along, and every bit of time was filled with some sort of action, plot advancement, or witty banter, or all three at once. 

The witty dialogues and monologues were packed with more meta-humor on Deadpool's part than a Mel Brooks film, similarly to the first two Deadpool movies only ramped up a notch. Besides merely referencing aspects of the movie production itself or making teasing meta-level observations of transpiring events, some of the meta-humor in the film was meta in the sense of being meta-level teasing of certain characters' actions, words, intentions, choices, character, etc., which satisfyingly serves to provide instant karmic enlightenment by the given character regarding their own follies, rather than the tropes of those follies remaining on a comparatively boring, unevaluated level like with most movies. Or at least we can imagine it did that; they didn't outwardly express the emotional and mental impact of the teasings much. 

The general dialogue of the movie was thick with frequent rapid-fire creative banter, primarily by Deadpool but not exclusively, which made the movie very entertaining. If there was any flaw with the creative banter, it was that it was rather hard to imagine Deadpool likely having the wit to come up with it all so quickly on such a regular basis, thus making it seem a little unreal and perhaps serving to take the viewer out of the movie. 

You'd think something like that taking the viewer out of the movie would be the least concern with all the fourth-wall breaking going on, but the fourth-wall breaking really blends in with the movie well. It doesn't seem to detract from the immersion at all. 

One great thing about this movie is that it borrowed fun elements from various other movies, or at least two: there was a Furiosa: Mad Max Saga-esque world in the movie, and a bad lady had stolen Dr. Strange's Sling Ring and then made use of it in the movie. The plot line also includes the story element of the multiverse with the Time Variance Authority from previous Marvel movies. I particularly enjoyed seeing the alternate Deadpool from some parallel universe who was also played by Ryan Reynolds, who had a positive, puppy-like persona.

Some aspects of this movie's plot were satisfyingly and unexpectedly deep, and while Ryan Reynolds' acting could be considered flawless, what really impressed me about this movie was Hugh Jackman's acting. I thought while watching the movie that he should get a freakin' Oscar for it. This movie really brings out his acting skills more than any previous Marvel movie.

Regarding the quick plot development mentioned above, the one drawback to this was that, while the reason for the resurrection of Wolverine was introduced early on and expeditiously, it seemed to be rather shallow and contrived: it seemed to involve the luck and convenience of a deus ex machina.

Overall, this movie was very fun and satisfying. One thing that made it fun was its levity—which, by the way, included playing upbeat songs like Madonna's 'Like a Prayer,' and a particularly rich remix of it, during massive fight scenes. And speaking of the music, its end-credits song 'LFG (Theme from "Deadpool & Wolverine") by Rob Simonsen was so good that I fired up Shazam to find out what song it was and saved the name of it in my phone for downloading later. And I'm very picky when it comes to music. 

I suggest you don't stop watching the credits there, though; sit it out till the end. There's an end-credits scene, and it's actually the funniest part of the movie, at least as far as I and a few of the other audience members were concerned.

Inside Out and Inside Out 2

Inside Out and Inside Out 2, as successful as those movies were/are, I think are still terribly underrated with respect to their instructional/mentoring value for pre-teens and teenagers.

They each pack within an hour or two what you'd probably need a few lifetimes to figure out otherwise. And if you ever did figure it all out yourself, by the time you did, you would be old enough that your mind/intelligence would be too "crystallized" to change in light of it, and most of the opportunities to do things better would have already passed.

Inside Out and Inside Out 2 are both ingenious in the way they use physical mechanisms and narratives in the fabricated "inner world" to represent actual (meaning "actual" within the movie) mental/emotional mechanisms and narratives in the subject, and the lessons are more or less universal in nature. It's full of apt metaphor after apt metaphor, some of them obvious, some of them subtle enough that you might not consciously get them—at least not without thinking for a bit.

(I suspect that, even if you don't "get" some of the metaphors on a conscious level, they may still ultimately sink in in the way that matters, much like how the symbolism of a dream has a positive/healing/normalizing impact on your subconscious mind whether you consciously understand it or not. Not all subtle metaphors in the world of fiction have this quality, of course, but the metaphors in question are directly about the workings of emotions and the mind.)

And I can tell that the fact that this is all represented as a story with emotions as characters and various mental props gives it a powerful impact and enables it to settle/osmose into the minds of young viewers without any necessary effort, unlike, say, a psychology text or even a good self-help book. Even therapy would be a lot of drudgery compared to these movies (but not to claim that these movies necessarily completely replace the utility of therapy, nor probably of a good book for that matter).

Please have your kids see Inside Out and Inside Out 2. (The protagonist is 11 in Inside Out, and 13 in Inside Out 2, to give a hint of age-appropriateness, but I think the range of applicable ages is actually very wide.) And tell all your friends about it.

The creators of these movies make me envious and make me want to do something equally good for humankind.