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| "Oh, what a day! WHAT A LOVELY DAY!" |
Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth installment in the
Mad Max franchise, and the first in 30 years. If you haven't seen the first three, there's no need to worry. While the
Mad Max films include individual, self-contained narratives anyway, this film has wisely been set up as an ideal jumping on point for newcomers to the franchise, and poses itself as half sequel, half reboot. While Mel Gibson
does not return to the franchise for the first time, being replaced by the wonderful Tom Hardy, the director of the first three, George Miller, is luckily still attached.
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| Tom Hardy as Max |
The plot of
Mad Max: Fury Road is as simple as one can get, staying true to the original films. When Max (Tom Hardy) becomes entangled with a fierce warlord and his army, he's forced to work with mutual enemy Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to survive. The film is essentially a two hour chase scene, with the complexities of the film coming from the spectacularly written and stunningly acted characters. It becomes extremely obvious how much care George Miller has taken to flesh out every single tiny detail of this universe, from character arcs to the sheer level of design on costumes, vehicles and locations. He even manages to stick to his guns and delivers a film that is created with an insane amount of practical work. The action you see on screen has a certain weight and realism to it because you can tell it's real. The trailers really aren't lying to praise him as a mastermind, because there's no shadow of doubt that Miller has put an insane amount of work into bringing this carnage alive.
The action is expertly directed, as well. If you're a fan of the original trilogy, rest assured that the chaos of scenes like the tanker chase from
The Road Warrior is back in full swing in
Fury Road. Considering how much of the film was done practically, it's all the more impressive that the film manages to convey it not only coherently, but beautifully. There's no offputting camera tricks here like shaky cam to detract from the action. Put simply, this is what, in my opinion, action films should look and feel like. In an age where directors like Joss Whedon (
Avengers and
Avengers: Age of Ultron) say filmmaking is a young man's game and their projects exhaust them (not that I'm saying filming a Marvel film wouldn't be hard work), 70 year old George Miller waltzes back into his franchise, sits them down and shows them the masterclass. Every crash, brawl and chase is so weighty and real and beautiful.
Fury Road is a quintessential action film.
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| Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe |
While it's a big part, the action isn't the only reason why
Mad Max is so successful though. The acting is great among the main stars. Tom Hardy and Hugh Keays-Byrne as Mad Max and Immortan Joe (the chief antagonist) are really great in their roles, with Hardy taking the reigns from Gibson brilliantly and Keays-Byrne delivering
another memorable Mad Max villain (he also played a different antagonist in the original). But arguable Charlize Theron, and to an extent Nicholas Hoult, are the scene stealers of the movie. Theron's Imperator Furiosa has a touching character arc, and really provides a lot of the heart of the movie. Not only that, but she's a complete bad ass too, holding her own against Mad Max in the slog for survival. By all accounts, this is Furiosa's film more than it is Max's, and that's not a bad thing at all. Hault plays Nox, one of the antagonist's war boys (the "What a lovely day" one), and it's spectacular to watch him get to portray a different role and get a bit crazy with it.
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| Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa |
Junkie XL, or Tom Holkenborg, turns in a fun and engaging score too. It helps to ramp up the action sequences to an even higher intensity, and he clearly had fun scoring sections where a certain vehicle appeared with a guitarist shredding it for the entire chase. Speaking of which, the design was also specifically spot on. All of the vehicles looked so damn cool, and they really had character to them too. Any CGI that is used throughout the film blends so well with the practical effects that the final product becomes so seamless. The pacing is spot on. I'm really struggling to think of
any aspect of the film where it suffers. I know a lot of reviewers are calling out it's light story, but I think that's an unfair criticism. It's not a bad story. It's not a convoluted one. It's a simple one that serves the film fantastically. Would the other reviewers prefer an overly long and convoluted plot like the
Transformers franchise that diminishes the final product?
Mad Max's story genuinely compliments the action rather than detracting from it.
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| Nicholas Hoult as Nux |
That note really perfectly summarizes my feelings on
Mad Max: Fury Road. I had absolutely no problems while watching it. I saw it on opening day and loved it so much I saw it again the next day. And I
still had an amazingly fun time. I had just seen the film and yet rewatching it there wasn't a single section where I got bored or a single aspect that I noticed to be anything less than excellent.
Fury Road is an action blockbuster masterpiece, one that will probably live in legend with the other greats, and one that shows every action blockbuster I've seen so far this summer, and probably all the ones yet to come, what they should really be striving for.
Mad Max really raises the bar that much for the pure action blockbuster, and should it do well enough at the box office, I can't wait to see how George Miller attempts to top this.
Mad Max: Fury Road - 10 / 10
