Mad Max: Fury Road
Trying to type a review for this movie seems almost pointless because I don’t think there are words that can adequately describe it. This movie is hands down one of the most insane, over the top, thrilling cinematic experiences I’ve ever seen. For almost the entire length of the movie, I just kept thinking…”other filmmakers, are you even trying?”
George Miller has made what is most likely THE ULTIMATE chase movie. He manages to put more style and suspense in the opening of this film (while barely showing any cars), than almost any other action movie in the past few years…and this is even before the Title card appears!
When the story does start (or to the point, when the chase begins), each set piece gets a little bit crazier and crazier. The stunts in this movie are seriously some of the most amazing things I’ve EVER seen. I felt these characters (and the actors) were in mortal danger whenever they were on screen. Charlize Theron plays a woman driving a truck, carrying some recently stolen, and very precious cargo. Tom Hardy is Mad Max, who’s taken along by the group who’s trying to recover that cargo. Fantastic vehicles, stunning cinematography, and heart pumping music washes over you for the next two hours.
The only small issue I have with the movie, is that while this is a GREAT storyline, it’s only a GOOD script. If there was a little bit more of some stronger dialog, this would’ve been a 5 out of 5 movie for me. That’s just my own opinion. With visuals like this, who really cares about the dialog.
George Miller has created a beautiful and thrilling masterpiece of a movie. I feel sorry for Universal Pictures who thought they had a cool vehicle franchise and still have to release the next “Fast and Furious” movie, because the bar has been set. Incredibly high.
I’m looking forward to seeing this again, next time in 3D as soon as I recover from having my mind blown.
Markellus’s Verdict 4.5/5
I’m not even going to attempt to bury the lead. Go and see this movie.
Not a sequel, not a prequel. The timeline doesn’t really matter. Following the same concept of the original Mad Max movies and created by the same genius writer/director/visionary, George Miller. Miller wows audiences once again with the first Mad Max installment in thirty years. Fury Road is made with modern technology but in the same glorious, practical, and real world way that movies had to be made in the late seventies and early eighties.
Fury Road opens with about 90 seconds of scattered images and a haunting voice over by Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) himself. He catches the audience up on what the world has become, why, and what his part in it is. Max talks more in the introduction than the other 158 minutes and thirty seconds of the movie combined. There is absolutely no fault in any of this. The story goes full throttle (sorry about the unavoidable puns) from here on out. The wasteland is easily understood and so are the concepts of the gangs that run the show and keep everyone else down. Max is dragged along on a crazy adventure and thrust into a fight that is absolutely no part his. The haunting memories of his family and their ill fate are fuel enough to keep the man going. Max ends up enemy turned ally to Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). Furiosa is almost more of a main character than Max himself. Theron shoulders the brunt of the film and is the catalyst for the majority of the story.
On what should be a routine supply run Furiosa has bigger ideas of freeing some women that are slaves, birthers, and treated as more product than people. When the leader of the gang/commune/society called The Citadel; Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne who was also in the original Mad Max as the villainous Toecutter) sees what Furiosa is attempting and wastes no time in dispatching his War Boys (soldiers trained since childhood called War Pups before fighting age) to go after her. Max is quite literally attached to Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a driver for Immortan Joe. The memories of Max’s family drive his desire to help Furiosa in her quest.
Audiences were likely not flocking to Fury Road to see A-List acting performances. The trailers show the big action, big fun, big popcorn movie spectacle of it all and do a great job. The cast is excellent as well. Tom Hardy’s portrayal of the character that launched Mel Gibson’s career is understated and beautiful. Max barely speaks the entire movie but the expressiveness of Hardy (the best part of the disappointing The Dark Knight Rises) speaks volumes. Nicholas Hoult, another strong actor, has proven his skill in several movies including the X-Men Franchise and About a Boy. Hoult has a chance to do something new in Max, everyone does, he basically plays a living cartoon character. Nux is obsessed with the pseudo-religion, dying a glorious death, driving, and earning the approval of Immortan Joe. He is a true believer, the most exciting kind of character. Hoult plays insane as well as he plays the comedic and action beats. He elevates his character in every scene he is in. Hugh Keays-Byrne isn’t exactly a household name at this point in his extensive career but the man plays a terrifying villain. Furthermore the character of Immortan Joe is a powerful presence while acting behind a mask the entire film. A fun little bit of trivia, Keays-Byrne also played the villain Toecutter in the original 1979 Mad Max. The characters are not the same person though, just an awesome actor playing some great villains. The real star of Mad Max: Fury Road is Charlize Theron. Theron has proven her range and skill countless times so there should be no surprise that she can handle a strong lead role in an action franchise. Knowing and seeing are two different things however. Watching Theron play a strong feminist leader, liberator of women, warrior, all with a handicap is enthralling. The title may be Mad Max but Imperator Furiosa is the star. Zoe Kravitz, Nathan Jones, Richard Carter, and John Howard round out the phenomenal supporting cast.
George Miller, the genius creator, writer, director of the three original Mad Max films is back for his fourth, and possibly best, time manning the helm of these action epics. Miller wanted to tell a new story about Max, but also wanted to do it his way. That is to say, the way he did the previous films. For fans that means practical effects. Computer imagery makes things like The Avengers possible, and the spectacle is phenomenal, but there is something pure and real about practical effects. Every car crash, flip, chase, explosion, stunt, fight, and bit of choreography is real. Computers were used for things like the sand storm, but the vast majority of the effects are old fashioned determined movie making and a talented stunt team.
Every shot is a work of art. The cinematography is absolutely stunning. Every scene leads to something great in the story and visually. The Citadel is massive and has some of the only greenery in the film. The desert leads to canyons, and the wrecked decay of the old world. As vast and empty as deserts look, Fury Road films it in such a way that it’s a thing of dangerous beauty. The score and sound effects are equally as impressive as the visuals. A blend of classic and metal make the soundtrack a strange mash up that just works. The music is exciting, it has a pulse, it makes your brain run to keep up. Fury Road is a two hour car chase. Plain and simple. That means audiences are treated to thousands of horse power rumbling out of frankenstein cars that were actually created in real life.
One aspect of the movie that you don’t get from the trailers, that is absolutely mind blowing, is the completeness of the world. There are a lot of small nods to make the whole more fleshed out. The religious obsession the War Boys have, the birthing mothers, mother’s milk, the wasteland, the green place, and the slang are all smaller details but explain the much larger world. The way the audience is thrust into the world in a ‘keep up and adapt’ type of viewing experience makes the ride a lot more fun than if everything was explained. The explanations would likely have had to be heavy handed for Max or some other newcomer to the story and would have taken away from the film as a whole. The way the world is so desolate and terrible yet complete and beautiful was a great surprise and added bonus for Fury Road.
A conclusion at this point seems unnecessary. Go and see the movie. See it in the best format possible; the bigger the better. This isn’t one to stream on your phone and watch with ear buds. Everything about Fury Road is pure, exciting, entertainment. GO AND SEE THIS MOVIE.
