So, in a post-apocalyptic nightmare hellscape (as depicted by, uh, a bucolic countryside and some small rural towns whose downtown businesses are mildly unsuccessful), there’s… not a whole lot going on, I guess?

In theory, this is a movie about a cop named MAX, whose wife and baby and partner (GOOSE, on loan from Top Gun) are killed by roving biker gangs, and then he becomes MAD MAX and goes on a killing rampage.

The only problem with that plot outline is that the part where biker gangs kill his family happens with fifteen minutes left in the movie. So yeah, he spends 15 minutes getting revenge, I guess. I think he kills like 2-3 guys.

But the prior 1:15 is full of a bunch of just random fucking around. It’s the kind of movie where if someone hit pause and said “what’s happening right now?” you’d say, “well, this guy got on a motorcycle and he’s driving really fast,” because you can see that’s what’s happening. But if they asked you the obvious follow-up question, “why is he doing that?” you’d have to squirm for a few minutes because fuck if you know. Because the movie needs him to crash, I guess, but that’s not how character motivation normally works.

I’m not really sure why this movie was successful or popular. It really is just some Clockwork Orange cosplaying bikers stirring up shit, plus people driving way too fast without goddamn seatbelts. (The most harrowing moment is when they get in a car chase with the baby just sitting in the way back, not in a car seat or anything. Yeah, that baby was never going to make it.)

I have to imagine that the Fury Road version of this is better?