I’m Alexander Cheves, and this is LOVE, BEASTLY—a blog about sex, feelings, and manhood. It’s written mostly for men—gay, straight, bi, MSM, or just curious—but some readers are women, and some don’t fit into categories. Everyone’s welcome here.
This is Beastly Reviews, where I write about films that made me feel something.
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At first glance, Mad Max: Fury Road is a straight man's fever dream: car chases, hot chicks, explosions, and a gruff main dude.
Yes, much of it is that—a loud, aggressive joyride of guns and grease. But the film is also an expected feminist anthem that pissed off incels and put everyone else in the Charlize Theron fan club for life.
I thought those Fast and the Furious movies had claimed the title of the most macho film franchise, but Fury Road reminded audiences who took on Toecutter and saved the Feral Kid. While George Miller's latest addition to the Mad Max world keeps with its bleak desert dystopia, one set in a lawless future Earth after society has fallen apart from oil shortages and climate crisis, it stands above its peers thanks to one badass woman, Furiosa.
Some proud straight guys have complained about the film, claiming it's feminist propaganda. Yeah, it is.
Max tends to get involved in other people's conflicts unwillingly, and this film keeps with that tradition. This time, his mission, besides not dying, is to help Furiosa—a one-armed rogue female general (Theron)—save some beautiful concubines from systematic rape by a psycho overlord named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, a performer from past Mad Max films). When Immortan Joe storms their prison chamber, now empty, a message is left on the wall: "Our babies will not be warlords!"
Furiosa takes over from there. Tom Hardy's nuttier, gruffer Max amounts, for the rest of the film, to a dashing, sexy sidekick. The low-key dom-sub vibe between them gets a little literal—at one point, he's leashed and muzzled, and she's tugging on his chain. The whole movie is a giant car chase broken up by sparse dialogue and moments of lovely cinematography. If loud movies give you a migraine, bring ibuprofen.
Fucking with gender stereotypes and omitting a sex scene entirely (or rape scene, which tend to feature in the Mad Max franchise) makes Fury Road a nicely woke, of-the-moment offering, but all social commentary aside, it's still just a damn good movie.
And then there's Tom Hardy to look at. Every film hero needs a hottie at their side, and Tom Hardy is such a babe.
Love, Beastly