Mad Max: Fury Road

MAD MAX:  FURY ROAD               C+                

Australia  USA  (120 mi)  2015  ‘Scope  d:  George Miller               Official site

If you like adrenaline-laced Hollywood action adventures, then this is the movie for you, as it’s really all about a series of lengthy chase scenes, each one attempting to create blood-curdling moments of action and suspense, followed by a few moments of down time where the viewers can catch their breath, before the next one starts up again.  It’s a bit like kids waiting in line at Disneyland before taking a ride on one of the more spectacular roller coaster adventures of their young lives, where spending all day at this could resemble the feel of this movie.  It’s not essential that you’re young, but it actually plays better to those who weren’t around to see the original MAD MAX Trilogy (1979, 81, 85).  To those that were, this is fairly forgettable, as you’ve seen it all before, where this is kind of a combination of films two and three reassembled into a director’s cut, where director George Miller waited thirty years for technology to catch up to what he likes to do, which is stage elaborately choreographed fast-action fantasy sequences that are pumped and accelerated by the apocalyptic, end-of-the-world setting, making it matter who wins these catastrophic bloodfests filled with crashes and explosions and bodies hurled in every which direction, giving each episode a moralistic twist.  Personally, having seen the originals as they came out, there’s not much to get excited about, as this has all played out before, where in at least one person’s opinion, Mel Gibson’s Max (replaced here by British actor Tom Hardy) remains the essential piece of the puzzle, where the spare minimalism of the initial episode (made for less than half a million yet earning $100 million, holding the Guinness Book of World Records for most profitable film for decades, supplanted by 1999’s BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and then 2007’s PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which remains the most profitable low-budget movie ever) remains the best for its novelty, daring originality and utter bleakness.  No one had ever seen anything like that before.  While this may be exactly what people in theaters want to see today, where it’s all about thrilling action and explosions on the biggest screen, really it’s just more of the same.  Even the previews before the movie tell the story, as there were four (count ‘em) trailers for Marvel Comic Book action adventure movies, from ANT-MAN to FANTASTIC FOUR to DEADPOOL to BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, not to mention a new STAR WARS Christmas release, where there is a stream of neverending movies just like this coming out of Hollywood for the next gazillion years (DC and Marvel Comic Book Movie Lineup - 2015 to 2020 ...).  The movie industry has apparently invested all their money in exploding action adventures like this, where viewers must pay a premium price to watch it in IMAX or 3D or the biggest and loudest theater experience possible, where what you pay for is more vividly enthralling than the normal experience of watching it in the comforts of your home, as that’s what Hollywood is selling.  That’s the new theatrical experience, where bigger is better.      

Essentially modelled after MAD MAX 2, aka: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981), which offered breathtakingly relentless non-stop action in an era before CGI effects were possible and is considered one of the greatest action movies ever made, topping the list in a recent January 14, 2015 Rolling Stone magazine Reader’s Poll, Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Action Movies of All Time ..., while described by critic Richard Scheib, Moria - The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review [Richard Scheib], as an “exhilarating non-stop rollercoaster ride of a film that contains some of the most exciting stunts and car crashes ever put on screen.”  It is the ultimate demolition derby movie that this fourth film has attempted to surpass―and if you’re judging purely by thrills and spills, perhaps it has.  The question, of course, is what does it matter?  Is this anything more than a summer blockbuster movie?  Does it contain a hint of the poetry from the original Trilogy?  Compare the narrator from MAD MAX 2:   

A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear.  Men began to feed on men.  On the roads it was a white line nightmare.  Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive.  The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice.  And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed.  Men like Max.  The warrior Max.  In the roar of an engine, he lost everything.  And became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland.

While a similar narration opens MAD MAX 4, toned down significantly:

My name is Max. My world is fire and blood.

Outside of the first, which has become a prelude for the rest, still connected to the world as it was before whatever apocalyptical disaster occurred, MAD MAX 4 is perhaps the most minimalist of the entire series, where Max himself is not even the center of the action, but has been replaced by a newly introduced character, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who’s seen as more of a badass than Max, whose replacement by a different actor is simply unthinkable.  It would be like Sergio Leone finding someone to replace Clint Eastwood in his legendary spaghetti westerns.  Some iconic figures are so cemented in the heart of the culture that it’s something you just don’t mess with.  Perhaps as a consequence of the transitory nature of a global economy, nothing is sacred.  But this certainly alters the tone of the movie, where the audience was asked to get inside the head of this lone figure wandering the wasteland, a man who started out with a wife and child, but lost everything, as did everybody else.  What follows is utter savagery, but Max, though loath to admit it, becomes a symbol for what was lost, still holding to a humane streak hidden deep inside that gruff exterior which affects our sympathies and appreciation for him, as he’s driven like no one else.  That’s entirely missing in this 4th episode.  And while he’s present, he appears mentally unstable, having grown closer to the darker side of madness, haunted by recurring flashbacks and psychotic voices in his head of all the people he tried to save and failed in the past, which have the effect of draining his strength and weakening his will to survive, which is and always has been his strongest asset.  Not so here, as we haven’t a clue what drives this man, as we no longer connect him to that same iconic figure.  Does that alter one’s appreciation for the movie?  Perhaps, as Max was like no one else.  Altering his persona removes our interest in the overall scheme of things, unless all we care about are extended chase sequences.  Originally conceived more than a decade ago, the film was ready to shoot, but postponed following the 9/11 attacks, where any number of obstacles since then have prevented the film from being made until now.  While all have been conceived and directed by Australian George Miller, this long interim from the last film has allowed technology to catch up with his grandiose vision, as the key to all these films has been the fantastic visual design of an entirely original universe, like something that might have come out of the mind and imagination of fantasy surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky.  At least partially shot in the Namib Desert of Namibia, South Africa, considered the world’s oldest desert, it is a fitting landscape for the remnants of a post-apocalyptic world, as the world’s devastation is easily understandable without ever having to resort to any extraneous talk about how we destroyed ourselves. 

Exactly like MAD MAX 2, the action centers around a daring ride in a tanker truck to help save what’s left of any civilized world, but in something of a twist, Max is not the one driving the truck.  Instead he’s imprisoned by a marauding gang of thugs that control a territory built into the cavernous regions of a giant rock formation known as the Citadel, where they have tapped into an underground water supply and built a structured male-dominated society based on servitude, controlled by the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a hulking mass of a man that resembles the primitive crudeness of early gladiators.  While it’s essential that each of the imaginary worlds created for each film have a distinctly different look, this one is equally outrageous, with oversized women with massive breasts who are hooked up to machines for their milk, but also an army of captive blood donors whose blood is used to keep others alive, many of whom are suffering from cancerous tumors.  After his capture, Max is kept in chains as a “blood bag,” hooked up like an IV to one of the young “War Boys” named Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who dreams of pleasing Joe with his valor in the field of battle, where Joe promises an afterlife in Valhalla if they die in combat.  Nux uses Max as a hood ornament for one of their gas runs into a nearby city in the wasteland, while Joe’s top driver, Furiosa, is driving the giant tanker, surrounded by a squadron of motorbikes and war hot rods armed to the teeth, one of which is driven by Nux, a deranged, new generation kid who is defined by his unhinged fanaticism.  When Furiosa takes an unexpected turn, spotted by Joe’s lookout team, all Hell breaks loose, as this act of defiance opens the floodgates of rebellion, where hidden in the truck Furiosa is smuggling out Joe’s five wives, each one selected for breeding, hoping to lead them to freedom.  What follows is a furious assault to repossess his property, while Max remains chained to the car wearing an armored mask throughout the heated battle, with the tanker plunging headfirst into the middle of a raging sandstorm.  In the lull after the storm, Max and Furiosa have their own little standoff, where he discovers the young girls, uses cutters to remove the chains, and tries to drive away on his own, but the gas tank is rigged, forcing them, for better or for worse, to forge an uneasy alliance.  This rag tag team of survivors, including Nux who changes sides once he’s introduced to female companionship, and others they meet along the way, continue to come under waves of relentless assaults for the remainder of the picture, a frenetically choreographed run for freedom that accentuates Miller’s prowess at directing exhilarating, ultra-kinetic action scenes of fire, bloody chaos and sheer mayhem while barreling through the wide-open expanse of the desert, where THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (2001, 03, 06, 09, 11, 13, 15) meets a modern day LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) in a nonstop action adventure movie.  As to claims of a feminist theme, let’s not to get carried away, as it’s only in the sense that women, just like men, can become fantasy figures who lead revolts and fire guns and rifles defending themselves, while killing others with equal success.  Hardly worthy of applause, but many in the theater were cheering, much as they did generations earlier for John Wayne in westerns.    

The Rover

 
 

David Michôd (left) on the set with his two stars

THE ROVER            B+               
Australia  USA  (102 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  David Michôd       Official site

You should never stop thinking about a life you’ve taken. That’s the price you pay for taking it. 

—Eric (Guy Pearce)

Following the brilliance of his earlier film Animal Kingdom (2010), one has come to expect great things from this Australian director, who has turned to a particular style of end of the world, post-apocalyptic film that continues the tradition of fellow Aussies George Miller, who introduced us to the nihilist universe of MAD MAX (1979), but also John Hillcoat, whose equally impressive films The Proposition (2005), as well as his vision of Cormac McCarthy’s death march in The Road (2009), both happen to feature the star of this film, Guy Pearce.  It was Pearce, along with fellow Australian actor Russell Crowe that broke onto the scene with utterly exhilarating performances in the Hollywood film noir thriller LA CONFIDENTIAL (1997), where Crowe went on to become a big star, now reduced to something of a caricature of himself, while Pearce has continued to do stellar work all along.  This film is impossible to imagine without him in mind, as it’s largely a wordless, nightmarish, apocalyptic vision taking place in a barren Australian wasteland set “10 years after the collapse,” with no more specifics ever provided.  Don’t get to your seats late as what happens early determines the rhythm and tone of the entire film, as Eric (Pearce) wanders into a lone bar in the middle of nowhere, a quiet, dusty hole in the wall.  But through the window, we see a truck barreling down the highway upside down, where the bloodied occupants crawl out afterwards, and like parasites stealing other bodies as hosts, these three outlaws break into Eric’s car and drive off into the emptiness of the outback.  Being the enterprising person that he is, Eric is able to get their truck unentangled and goes off after them.  After a brief exchange on the road, where all Eric wants is his car back, he’s instead left for dead on the highway as the outlaws continue on their path to oblivion.  Things fall apart even further after that, like a trek into the heart of darkness, where civilization as we once knew it has all but disappeared, and what’s left is a savage graveyard of dead bodies and souls, where killing people is the best way of getting what you want, as words are a mere afterthought.   What describes this film best is the strange and eerie musical soundtrack by Antony Partos (who also scored Animal Kingdom), much of which sounds like industrial noise, but it has the capacity to reflect the altered sense of consciousness that pervades throughout this dusty landscape, certainly as effective as the legendary music by Ennio Morricone in Sergio Leone films, but supercharged with creepy effects. 

Introduced through a flashback sequence, Robert Pattinson as Rey is similarly left for dead on the roadside, and though badly wounded, he crawls into a vehicle until unable to continue.  By a strange act of fate, these two are mysteriously brought together in the vast emptiness, as Rey recognizes the car Eric is driving, claiming it belongs to his brother.  Eric demands to know where his brother is, but doesn’t get far after giving him a crushing blow that only knocks him out.  Driving into a surreal abyss, with dead bodies strung onto the passing telephone poles, it’s a precautionary reminder of what to expect if one ventures further, like a ghoulish nightmare.  A visit to another weird stop on the road leads him to a somewhat deranged grandmother (Gillian Jones) who passes as the madam in a dingy brothel, who can’t seem to understand why he’s so intent on finding his car, “What a thing to get worked up about in this day and age,” where Eric picks up some weaponry, but at a heavy price.  The menacing tone exists throughout the film, made even more pronounced when Rey comes to, where we discover he’s something of a half-wit, viewed initially as little more than a mangy dog left on the side of the road after being hit by a car, but slowly a more resilient personality begins to take shape, almost by surprise, but not until after Eric discovers the whereabouts of a doctor, a woman living in the outback (Susan Prior), where one of the more somber scenes in the film is watching Eric stumble upon a room with a dozen or so dogs in cages, where he sits and stares at them, identifying with their state of captivity and their loss of freedom, but they’re alive, all abandoned by their owners who disappeared into the night never to return.  After another horrific scenario plays out, a continuing pattern that recurs throughout the movie, breaking the mood of what is otherwise a movie set in quiet and near silence, Eric brings his recovering patient along as they barrel down the highway into the bleakness of the night.  While they presumably have a destination, as Rey’s condition improves, he freely acknowledges where his brother is likely to be, Henry (Scoot McNairy), and his two cohorts Caleb (Tawanda Maryimo) and Archie (David Field), as he’s just as curious about finding them, especially after they abandoned him.   

Though they’re on the road for most of the picture, the film is not so much a road movie, more a depiction of gruesome, neverending horror, where the grim circumstances never relent, shown without any trace of humor, but as time goes on, the movie delves into the psychological interiors of the two men, both considerably damaged, though Rey’s mental confusion makes him comparable to Lennie from Steinbeck’s depression novel Of Mice and Men, seen here as a kind of caged animal that doesn’t know his own strength, who is instead constantly viewed through the fragility of his mental weakness.  At one point he’s rambling on in the car about his farmer neighbors, this after learning Eric was a farmer before the collapse, until he’s rudely interrupted by Eric wondering why he’s telling him all this personal crap, and Rey meekly retorts, “Not everything has to be about something.”  The movie comes to reflect the shifting tones between these two characters, where there are subtle changes in their feelings toward each other, where the audience is drawn into this as well, as initially the focus is upon the heroic aspects of Eric, seen as a lone warrior against an out of control wilderness, but slowly the viewer takes an interest in the more vulnerable Rey, whose crazed ramblings may reflect the last vestiges of humanity.  What’s intriguing about Rey is his need for companionship, where he’s afraid of being left alone, where he’s the kind of guy that can’t decide anything for himself, as he needs to be told what to do.  In one of the more hypnotic moments of the film, in the still of night, while the two are sitting by a campfire, Eric intently tells Rey not just what awful things have happened to him, but what God has done to him, stripping through the layers, exposing his real fears, leaving him utterly defenseless to the kind of pain that is ripping the earth apart.  It’s the closest we come to the kind of excruciating pain and anguish, which is all that’s left in the world.  This film at least attempts to do what Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2011), for instance, fails to do, which is get in touch with the end stages of human emotions once the realization is made that all is lost.  Rey has a flashback moment where the car radio plays Keri Hilson - Pretty Girl Rock - YouTube (4:14), a reminder of the superficial vanity that once was, an era consumed by mindless impulses and myopic convictions, replaced by a vast wasteland where there’s nobody left that cares.  As bleak as they get, this all takes place under the scorching 110 degree heat of the Australian outback with flies everywhere, shot where it’s 9-hours by car in any direction to the nearest civilization.  Michôd is excellent in creating a world that is frighteningly unforgiving and cruel, yet portrayed through realism and raw emotions, where every last character has become alienated from their former humanity, suggesting how easy it is for civilization to simply disappear off the face of the earth.  Something of a concept film, reminiscent of those 50’s novels where nuclear fallout would inevitably destroy the world, like Alas, Babylon, On the Beach, Level 7, or Fail-Safe, here one’s worst fears have already become realized and there’s simply no answer for the neverending sadness that greets each empty moment with an all-consuming silence. 

Drive

DRIVE             B+      

USA  (100 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Nicolas Winding Refn

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, winner of Best Director for this film at Cannes, takes a break from his more violently exotic PUSHER Trilogy (1996 – 2005) and takes a stab at an American mixture of commercial and art motif with this homage to the existential car films of the 1970’s like VANISHING POINT and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (both 1971), or Walter Hill’s THE DRIVER (1978), where what each have in common with this film are the extraordinary specialized skills of the mechanic and guy behind the wheel, where the open road seen ahead is the only freedom he’ll ever know.  It’s also impossible not to think of Steve McQueen in BULLIT (1968), the personification of cool behind the wheel, transplanted to Ryan Gosling here (originally slated for Hugh Jackman), known only as the Driver, a wordless guy with steely nerves, a Zen calmness, but also a capability for savage violence.  The love affair with the automobile is established right away as the Driver gets a couple of crooks out of a tough jam, evading the police with an eerie kind of expertise, a brilliant sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the movie, opening a window into his world, luring the audience into a fascination with his profession.   The real film this resembles, however, is To Live and Die in LA (1985), as both show a seethingly corrupt film noir underworld in the city of Angels, both expertly establish a high throttle tension throughout, both straddle the line between law abiding and law breaking, and both have inspired musical soundtracks, where Cliff Martinez creates a Tangerine Dream-style synth score, featuring a wall to wall, techno-pop, sound effect of angelic romantic choruses that couldn’t be more hypnotically appealing.  The artistic design of the film has a sleek, classical elegance, where the constantly moving digital cameras from cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel offer the viewer a roller coaster ride, where the pauses allow you a chance to look around for a moment before they start rolling again. The mounting tension is unsurpassed in any other recent film, creating a palm sweating, edge-of-your-seat visceral experience that is nothing less than superb.  That said, the storyline by Hossein Amini adapting the James Sallis novella here, who also wrote the superb Thomas Hardy gut-wrenching movie adaptation of Michael Winterbottom’s JUDE (1996), feels very sleight in comparison.       

Gosling’s Driver establishes the interior tone behind the wheel, a MAD MAX (1979) style lone wolf on the prowl in the wasteland of an urban jungle, a guy that doesn’t set his heights too high, but his expertise as a professional stunt driver for the movies is so noteworthy that it’s impossible for others not to notice.  He moonlights as a driver for hire, an escape artist, no questions asked, no talking to the cops, just a guy who excels behind the wheel.  "I drive.  That's all I do."  The titillated novelty here is the barebones thread of a budding romance with one of his neighbors, Carey Mulligan as Irene, a single mom raising her young son alone while his dad is in prison.  Their first date is a return road trip to the cement canal dry riverbed waterways of a chase sequence in To Live and Die in LA, this time seen through a much softer, romantic prism, a gentle and poetic moment that feels like an oasis in the desert, as much of the rest of the film is filled with bloodlust and revenge.  Despite the hyper violent edge, the actual moments of screen time violence are far less than most all Hollywood thrillers, amounting to just a few minutes of the entire film, but the extreme stylization is so enigmatic that the effect is more memorable and long-lasting.  This is an inevitable heist gone wrong film, where the Driver just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the people he’s mixed up with don’t realize they’re stealing the mob’s money, which means there’s hell to pay.  The vicious turn of events are brilliantly executed, where Gosling is mesmerizing with his cool demeanor, rising above his double-crossing cohorts with minimal sweat, or so it seems, able to stare death in the face even as he’s being targeted.  The quick decisive action of the mob is alarming, showing extreme brutality, but Gosling keeps his wits about him, where one wonders just what kind of trouble he may have faced before, questions that remain unanswered.                  

When did Albert Brooks, creator of his own strange and quirky comedies of the 80’s and 90’s and the voice of Nemo’s neurotic Dad in Disney’s FINDING NEMO (2003), become a gangland boss?  Did we miss something?  Here’s a guy that cast Debbie Reynolds as his own mom in MOTHER (1996), for Christ’s sake, so when did this transition occur?  Was it the slimy character he played in Soderbergh’s OUT OF SIGHT (1998), the guy that risked his girl friend’s life rather than give up the hidden diamonds?  Was it his role as a Dick Cheney-style government bureaucrat gone mad in THE SIMPSON’S MOVIE (2007)?  Whatever happened from his days at Saturday Night Live, the guy now plays a terrific heavy, as he’s the face of the mob boss here, given some highly colorful, profanity laden dialogue that seems to resurrect his memory as a once proficient hit man rising up the ranks, where the guy loves to be warm and fuzzy, but can’t afford mistakes or any loose ends in his line of business, which makes his end of it very personal.  The film is very much style over substance, despite the terrific performances all around, as there’s little to no social commentary and an ambiguous moral dilemma that has little to do with anyone's life.  It’s the love element that tips the audience in favor of the Driver, as he’s cool and collected but falls for the girl, even as her life gets exasperatingly complicated when her husband is released from prison.  Still, the inevitable showdown is between two guys outside the reach of the law, both brutally efficient, where no one can really call either one a winner, as there’s too much psychological baggage to carry.  Refn uses a very compact, highly constricted style that energizes his work, creating an extremely taut and gripping drama, something one movie executive character ironically describes in the Sallis book as:  “Think Virginia Woolf with dead bodies and car chases.”

The Mechanic (2011)

THE MECHANIC                                          C

USA  (93 mi)  2011  'Scope  d:  Simon West

You know, I’ve always had a soft spot for Charles Bronson, a guy with a tough looking face who always had a gentle side that usually covered up his ferocious behavior, noted for his break out role as a Bohemian beach bum with a thing for Elizabeth Taylor in THE SANDPIPER (1965), and for his superb performances as a mysterious stranger in Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968), as a U.S. Army special investigator who travels to France in search of a rapist, developing an attachment with a beautiful young woman in the romantic psychological thriller RIDER ON THE RAIN (1970), and as a charming but mythical outlaw in an underrated western with a startlingly original storyline in FROM NOON TILL THREE (1976).  Bronson, however, was prone to type, and with his tough guy image ended up being type cast to death, all but ruining his career, as he repeated the exact same role over and over again, such as the lone vigilante Paul Kersey in five DEATH WISH movies over a span of 20 years.  But the early 70’s were some of Bronson’s best years, as he exuded confidence and a seasoned maturity, no more so than as a highly specialized mob hit man in THE MECHANIC (1972).  In the role of Arthur Bishop, he takes an apprentice under his wing, Jan-Michael Vincent, who appears eager to learn the skills of the trade, but in the end there is an obligatory double cross.  Nearly thirty years later, the film is being remade, using the same title, but with Jason Stratham in the Bronson role of Arthur Bishop, the cool, consummate professional whose operations are so meticulously planned out, no one even knows he was there, as evidenced by an opening sequence where a drug kingpin is killed while swimming in his own pool undetected by watchful security guards, as all the action takes place underneath while the surface shows nothing drawing anyone’s attention.  When Bishop gets back to his remote glass house somewhere in the bayou of Louisiana, for relaxation he pulls out a record of the highly distinctive Schubert Piano Trio Andante movement made famous in Kubrick’s BARRY LYNDON (1975).   

Donald Sutherland in a wheelchair makes a brief appearance as Bishop’s friend and longtime superior, before himself becoming the subject of the next hit, something about a plan going awry in South Africa where several highly trained men ended up dead.  Enter Ben Foster as Sutherland’s volatile, hot-tempered son vowing revenge, a younger kid who seems to screw up everything he touches, so Bishop takes him under his wing and attempts to teach him to channel those emotions rather than be driven by them.  While Foster immediately picks up on the adrenaline of the action, and is a rush of energy himself, his scenes careen out of control because he can’t follow the plan and instead creates a bloody catastrophe with every hit.  The two end up in Chicago where we see them scale high rise buildings and leap from dangerous rooftops, making it all look easy, though we never see any training for this kind of operation.  In the Bronson film, there would be word interplay between the two characters, as Bronson always has a screen personality, but these two have little to say to one another and speak through action scenes where they have to develop a trust with one another.  The film does move with a brisk pace, and the Hollywood action sequences are well designed and deliver the necessary tension, however, as predicted, due to Foster’s presence, their work starts to look very messy, making business look bad, drawing the attention of the superiors, as this is certainly the exact opposite of the victims never knowing a hit man was there.  What follows is Foster gets a hint that Bishop may have been involved in his father’s killing, while at the same time Bishop gets a hint that Sutherland was used as a fall guy and never deserved to be killed.  With this kind of toxic information flying through the air, none of it communicated to one another, the stage is set for a final climax sequence which is highly charged and explosive, but differs quite substantially from the original, which was much more daring than the ending here, which actually has a MAD MAX (1979) feel to it, as if the world out there is nothing but a wasteland.