Look, I know this isn’t a surprise to anyone by this point, but MRAs really are the whiniest little pissbabies this side of a playpen full of over-tired toddlers.

I’ll keep my review of Mad Max: Fury Road short: the screenplay of Mad Max: Fury Road was clearly created by someone eating Slayer liner notes and then drinking tequila until they threw up, while drag racing, and I mean that in the best possible way. It had maybe a cumulative 10 minutes worth of spoken dialogue, not counting wordless yelling, and at least 45 minutes of cumulative explosions, and one dude whose whole job was to dangle from bungee cords on the front of a tricked out post-apoc truck playing an electric guitar that shot fire and it was SO FUCKING RAD I SWEAR.

The screenplay of Mad Max: Fury Road was clearly created by someone eating Slayer liner notes and then drinking tequila until they threw up, while drag racing, and I mean that in the best possible way.

But the only reason I got excited for what was, essentially, a reboot of the 80s itself, was that some squalling infant of an MRA bashed his spittle-covered fists on the keyboard to produce a written temper tantrum to the effect that MM:FR was some sort of feminist propaganda. Since I could not help but stare in fascinated horror at what passes for an analysis among MRAs, I kinda had to go see this movie, to enjoy what I hoped would be a couple hours of explosions and feminism.

My first mistake was assuming that just because an MRA hated something, I would love it. Now, while it’s true that MRAs are wrong all the time, I should not have given them credit for actually being capable of any level of analytical thought, even analytical thought that arrives at the wrong conclusion, because this movie is not all that feminist. I mean, it’s not NOT feminist. It’s just that I am pretty sure that when this MRA says “feminist” he means “has women in it” which is not what I mean when I say feminist, but hey, at least it still had explosions and Charlize Theron had a robot arm and did I mention the electric guitar guy?

Ok so for the rest of this article I’m just going to tell you dumb stuff this MRA said and then tell you why it’s dumb.

“If you were like me, the explosions, fire tornadoes, even the symphonic score surrounding “Fury Road’s” first trailer made your attendance a foregone conclusion. It looked like a straight-up guy flick.”

Things that make something for men, apparently: 1. Explosions. 2. Fire tornadoes. 3. Symphonic scores. 1 and 2 ok I’ll grant you, explosions and fire tornadoes are STRICTLY for the menfolk. You know how women get around explosions. They can spook, maybe throw a shoe, even break their leg if they panic enough and then you have to shoot them and no wait I think that’s horses, nevermind. I don’t know, I got nothing I have literally no idea why explosions and fire tornadoes are supposed to be a dude thing. But 3? Symphonies are a symbol of manliness now? If you say so, MRA.

“No fucking around.  Perhaps even a little, hidden acknowledgement from the director that when the shit hits the fan, it will be men like Mad Max who will be in charge.”

Shit, and here was me thinking the Mad Max movies were all about how when the shit hits the fan it will be people who have the most winning combination of mullets and leather who will be in charge. I’ve been watching these films all wrong.

“But then my spidey senses started noticing a couple things.”

Ok I wasn’t going to touch this line, but your spidey sense started noticing things? YOUR SPIDEY SENSE STARTED NOTICING THINGS? Tingling. Spidey senses tingle. If you’re going to try and be a Fake Geek Boy at least check Wikipedia so you can get your nomenclature right.

“Charlize Theron kept showing up a lot in the trailers, while Tom Hardy (Mad Max) seemed to have cameo appearances. Charlize Theron sure talked a lot during the trailers, while I don’t think I’ve heard one line from Tom Hardy. And finally, Charlize Theron’s character barked orders to Mad Max. Nobody barks orders to Mad Max.”

Here, our MRA reviewer’s complaint boils down to “there is a woman, and she talks. She talks to a man and tells him what to do.” I don’t really recall Charlize Theron’s character barking orders at Mad Max, beyond “DRIVE!” which, I mean, what the hell else are you going to yell at Mad Max? He’s Mad fucking Max. “COMPOSE A MANLY SYMPHONY?” Action heroes yell things at each other. This complaint makes it sound like Charlize Theron spends the whole movie whining that Mad Max should really pull over and ask for directions. Something tells me this reviewer delights in the fact that his GPS has a female voice, so that he can scream at it to shut up every time it tries to let him know he missed a turn. The movie is 80s as hell, but this dude’s gender stereotypes are firmly anchored in the 50s.

It’s also funny that he’s upset about Mad Max not talking a lot. You know those loquacious monologues Mad Max is known for. I have to say, it kinda seems like this dude is pissed that Mad Max was acting like Mad Max.

“Alas, I was forced to accept reality.  Fury Road was not going to be a movie made for men. It was going to be a feminist piece of propaganda posing as a guy flick.”

Again, “feminist propaganda” here means “movie containing women.”

Clearly this dude knows nothing about Mad Max (Mad Max the American realistic character talks all the time!) but look to him cling to it the minute he thinks feminists might be coming for it.

It’s also cool how he assigns male characteristics to things like explosions and tornadoes, and then accuses the movie of falsely portraying itself as for men because it contains those things. That’s like deciding that wearing blue means a person is advertising their services as a plumber, and then getting mad when random blue-clad people fail to fix your sink; you’re the one who decided that symphonic scores meant the movie was for guys, and that Charlize Theron meant it was not for guys. You don’t get to claim false advertising based on a conflict in the intricate code of gender markers you invented.

“[blahblahblah] ruining nearly every potentially-good action flick with a forced female character or an unnecessary romance sub-plot.”

Hey just popping back in to let you know that the closest this movie comes to a romantic subplot is…

Uh…well there was a character who like…smiled at a member of the opposite sex? Does that count? No?

I am seriously trying to figure out what subplot he could possibly characterizing as romantic.

Oh, I got it. Like everything else, it comes back to the guy with the sweet freaking electric guitar. The romance is between that guy and METAL, and it is a MATCH FORGED IN THE FIRES OF MOUNT DOOM.

“And the real issue is not whether Hollywood has the audacity to remove the name sake of a movie franchise called MAD FREAKING MAX, and replace it with an impossible female character in an effort to kowtow to feminism. It has.”

AN IMPOSSIBLE FEMALE CHARACTER. Guys. Did you know Mad Max was not a documentary and that some of the characters (AND SOME OF THE CARS????) depicted therein were not factual representations of reality? I am so sorry you had to find out this way.

Also Mad Max is still in the movie, calm the fuck down.

I’m actually going to ignore his return to the whole “I was tricked by sneaky feminist explosions” thing, and just wait for Australia to come beat him up for calling Mad Max American. You fucked up there, man.

“It’s whether men in America and around the world are going to be duped by explosions, fire tornadoes, and desert raiders into seeing what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda, while at the same time being insulted AND tricked into viewing a piece of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very eyes.”

I’m actually going to ignore his return to the whole “I was tricked by sneaky feminist explosions” thing, and just wait for Australia to come beat him up for calling Mad Max American. You fucked up there, man.

Shit, I can’t even continue reading this. You called Mad Max American. I just. I don’t think you know that much about Mad Max, bro. Are you’re sure you’re a real man, because I hear real men LOVE Mad Max.

The rest is just more waaaaaah women don’t act the way I want them to, I don’t like movies that have women in them. This review, like all other MRA whining, is worthless.

But it did get me to see Fury Road a little faster than I would otherwise have done, and I’m here to tell you that the electric guitar guy is fucking rad, so, you know, worth it.

I think the MRAs real fear is that people will actually enjoy a movie that has a badass woman with a robot arm. Like the spoiled babies they are, MRAs decide that whatever a woman is currently doing is actually their favorite toy that is now being taken away from them. The historical dominance men have held over robot-armed post-apocalyptic truck drivers is being threatened, so suddenly robot-armed post-apocalyptic truck drivers are vital to American manhood. Clearly this dude knows nothing about Mad Max (Mad Max the American realistic character talks all the time!) but look at him cling to it the minute he thinks feminists might be coming for it. This isn’t about filmmaking, or even feminism, it’s about terrified, defensive possessiveness.

U mad (max), bro?

Edited to add postscript:

For a further sense of what the viewing experience of this movie was like, I will quote my partner, who upon exiting the theater announced “I truly think that, in the best possible way, this is the movie that would have been made by my male friends in 7th grade when they had skater hair and a band called Wyld Chyld.”  We saw it in 3-D, which enhanced the sheer over-the-top-ness of this cinematic equivalent of an airbrushed van that happens to be on fire, so if you’re on the fence about 3-D and can afford the extra few bucks, go for it.

If this movie were punctuation, it would be gratuitous umlauts.
Gratuitous umlauts with perfectly acceptable, but not particularly dramatic levels of feminism.