Mad Max: Fury Road

To say this film is visually stunning and action-packed is a gross understatement and somewhat of a disservice to director George Miller. This film is spectacular in almost every way a film can be and one of the best, if not the best action film I saw in 2015.The story, despite the future setting and complex tribes therein, is a rather simple case of theft and pursuit. The theft is by Charlize Theron’s character, the Imperator Furiosa, of the leader Immortan Joe’s many young wives and a tanker full of mother’s milk. Max, played by a brooding Tom Hardy is a bit of a bystander initially albeit chained to the front of one of the perusing vehicles driven by a brainwashed Nux played by Nicholas Hoult. Both these male characters soon become embroiled in helping these women escape from the deranged pack of men.In terms of spoken words the script is rather short and takes second stage to a screenplay full of audacious stunts, explosions, car crashes in scene after scene of cleverly assembled and choreographed set pieces. The quieter beats between the mayhem use the desert setting, the sky, lighting and colouring effects in moments of visual poetry. You could watch this film with no sound and still enjoy it more than a lot of films released in 2015. However, don’t, because the soundtrack and sound effects are pretty awesome too. The in-situ drummers and rock guitarist were a brilliant idea and made me think of the Borderlands games – obviously themselves influenced by Mad Max.That’s not to say that the characters, for an action film, aren’t good. Max is haunted by events of his past, so much so that he often hallucinates. It is interesting that the demons that plague him end up helping him to survive. Furiosa with her cleverly CG’d stump and robotic arm has demons of her own and to some extent is simply a female version of Max, although she’s more calculating than she is mad. Once Nux sees beyond his quasi-religious fervour to please Immortan Joe (he fails quite miserably and then very quickly catches the eye of one of the hot harem of Australia’s Next Top Models) he does everything he can to help Max, Furiosa and the other women survive. He is the character who has the most interesting arc from a naïve brainwashed drone to a hero willing to make the ultimate selfless sacrifice. Of the three I think it is fair to say that Charlize Theron delivers the best performance and certainly seems to get more screen time than Hardy or Hoult.At the time of watching I had not seen any of the old Mel Gibson films in their entirety but there’s an assumption that the viewer at least has an idea of this dystopian future premise (as familiar in pop culture folklore as the premise of The Terminator or Jurassic Park I am sure) and there are therefore no explanations beyond some voiceover on the opening credits. There’s so many sequels or reboots these days that waste a lot of time explaining the situation rather than just doling out the action and it’s refreshing that this film isn’t one of them. I felt in no way impeded by not having seen the previous movies. I have since corrected this gap in my life as a cinephile and stick by this review.The only thing that bothered me, and only a little, was that Max didn’t really get to drive his iconic muscle car all that much and as he blends into the crowd at the end of the film I was left hoping he was going to find his car, fix it and appear driving it in a sequel. (And he is, the sequel is called Mad Max: The Wasteland by all accounts).

Cool film

It's hysterical reading the negative reviews:"The plot is simplistic- they just drive from A to B and back again"Have a word with yourself will you? MM2: Drive to gas station, drive away, drive back, drive away... MM3: Go to Bartertown;leave Bartertown; return to Bartertown; leave Bartertown... it's Mad Max. It's NEVER done detailed plot beyond driving aimlessly..."The script is awful"- compared to what? "I am the Great Humungos!"? Or "Warrrrrr-kaaaa! Warrrrrrr-kaaa!" Mad Max ALWAYS has cheesy/awful scripts."The acting is awful"? Compared to the OTHER Mad Max films? Let's be honest here- I adored Tina in MM3 but wasn't surprised that she (and no one else) was ever nominated for an Oscar yanno?It's Mad Max. It does what all Mad Max films do-Fast cars, explosions, great driving action sequences, weird costumes, spiky oil tankers, great stunts, end of the world nonsense, excessive bad guys, booom! Ka-pow! Ka-pow! (makes car noises for a few minutes)That's all it was going to be.Unrealistic expectations that somehow it WOULDN'T be a Mad Max film/or myopic belief that anything made in your youth is magically somehow better (they are not remaking Citizen Kane here people- you cannot 'ruin' the original movies- which were just pure ka-pow! ka-pow! BOOM! (car noises) and sped up film the whole time (especially 2 and 3- you know- the actual successful ones) are silly.This is simply- a great big dumb fun movie.Furiosa gets a big thumbs up for being female and hard as nails, and disabled and NOT a love interest and while I loved Gibson as Max, Hardy does just fine. At least he doesn't look like he spent four hours having his hair perfectly back combed!Rent/buy this film, put it on, have big dumb fun, move on. Afterwards maybe try making car noises.

Decent, prefer the originals but a good movie

I first watched Mad Max 2 on the day I left secondary school in 1985 on a VHS cassette. The action was spell binding, so of course I was obliged to seek out the original Mad Max; a more violent and visceral experience but I loved the cars and chases. The 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe is such a photogenic muscle car, even if the use of a Weiand supercharger was nothing more than the, all too, willing suspension of disbelief. The Falcon's top speed of 120 mph was less than incredible in the mid-eighties, the age of the hot hatch led by the VW Golf Mk1 GTi (I have since owned two, one being a Campaign model, the latter being an Audi 1985cc 16v engined racer) but somehow the Falcon had something awesome about it.I believe the franchise lost direction when Tina Turner starred in the third instalment and must confess to have never watched it in it's entirety.I bought Fury Road in the belief that Tom Hardy would be able to reprise the role. I was not disappointed; in my opinion he absolutely made the role his own. This does not detract from Mel Gibson's earlier performances. The story was so high-paced and octane fuelled that I would admit to not fully understanding or comprehend the plot of the film that I had witnessed the first time around. Easy, so I watched it again and it all made sense. The cameo role of Immortan Joe given to Hugh Keays-Byrne, the Toe Cutter in the original Mad Max, was inspired; an excellent baddie!If you have seen other films in the franchise then please give it a try and if you have not then watch them in chronological order, it will all make much more sense this way.