We all go a little Mad sometimes…
Directed by: George Miller
Written by: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Zoe Kravitz
The H-Bomb: Mad Max fans rejoice, the series no longer ends with the depressingly lackluster Beyond Thunderdome. Thirty years after that kid friendly crud-fest besmirched this once great franchise with its fail, director George Miller returns to give Max his balls back, and to give us a real Mad Max movie… the Mad Max movie to end all Mad Max movies. I say that not because I want Fury Road to be the final entry in the franchise, I most certainly don’t, but because I truly have no earthly clue how Miller could ever possibly top this epic of mass destruction!
In case you’re not catching on, I fucking loved Mad Max: Fury Road! Now before you say, “Oh, you’re just a groveling fan boy,” let me just stop you in your mother lovin’ tracks, troll-bag. While I was excited for this long awaited sequel, I kept my expectations in check. Dr. Miller is getting up there in age, his more recent work (the Babe movies, the Happy Feet horseshit) hasn’t exactly been what you would call “edgy” or “thrilling,” and, as stated, Beyond Thunderdome sucked absolute donkey dong. I had hopes for this new one, but I had my fears, too.
Well, my fears be damned, because this movie is all kinds of amazing. Seriously fucking amazing. How amazing? Well, my pre-screening, for whatever reason, only showed the movie in 2D. I have every intention of hitting the theater this weekend, paying full price, and seeing this beast the way it was intended to be seen… in all its gorgeously gruesome, three dimensional glory! I normally would never pay to see a movie after catching a pre-screening, but in this instance, I may very well do it more than once.
Okay, I should probably just chill my tits and actually talk about the film. Set some time after the events of the original Mad Max, but apparently before the events of The Road Warrior, the world has gone to hell, and former Australian police officer Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) is now living a solitary life on the road. His days mainly consist of eating mutant lizards, keeping the voices in his head at bay, and avoiding the various violent road gangs that have formed since the collapse of civilized society.
It’s one of these gangs, a nasty cult of bald, powder white weirdos, that manages to capture Max, after an obligatory car chase, and take him back to their base, where they intend to harvest his blood… I think. Their leader, a fugly, tumor ridden albino freak named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), has control of a vast water supply, which he doles out to his thirsty, subservient masses by raining it down on them very sparingly, as this is a world where fresh, non-radiated water is hard to come by.
One of Immortan Joe’s underlings, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), abruptly takes off with a large tanker full of something that’s very valuable to dear Joe, and he and his army give chase. Eventually, Max joins forces with Furiosa, and the two of them must make their way across the harsh, unforgiving landscape, through massive dust storms and treacherous canyons, all the while fighting off the legion of freaks on their tail. That’s all the plot that’s fit to print.
Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most exhausting and numbing movies I have ever seen, and when I say exhausting and numbing, I mean that in the best way possible. This thing is two solid hours of pulse pounding, bone crunching, metal mashing chaos. Dr. Miller may have just turned 70 this year, but the level of manic energy he injects into his fourth Max adventure would make you swear it was made by a filmmaker half his age. I always considered The Road Warrior to be one of the greatest action flicks ever made… this thing is like The Road Warrior on fucking steroids. I shit thee not.
Usually when people say a movie is “non-stop action,” it’s hyperbole. Not the case here, this thing is literally non-stop action. Seriously, the entire film is a gigantic chase scene. A chase scene with a shitload of fist fights, gun fights, and some truly spectacular stunt work tossed into the mix. Ever try to imagine what a Mad Max movie made on a large budget, with modern filmmaking techniques, would look like? Well, now you don’t have to, it’s here, and holy hell is it spectacular.
Most of the mayhem is contained to the giant vehicles themselves, which actually provides for some of the most imaginative, crazy-ass set pieces I’ve seen in a long, long time. We’ve got Max pounding the shit out of people on top of the tanker, lunatics leaping from one car to the next, and lastly, more than a few folks getting flattened and mangled the fuck up by these massive mechanical monsters. Every kind of vehicular violence you can possibly imagine is here, and even a few that you can’t imagine. The few times when the movie does stop to take a breath, it comes as a genuine relief, as there are a few points where I came dangerously close to overdosing from this onslaught of sheer insanity.
Normally, this isn’t the kind of film where one would comment on the acting, as the characters themselves aren’t particularly deep, but the question on everyone’s mind is, how does Hardy do as Max? Pretty fucking well, actually. Many probably think that no one besides Mel “Bat-Shit” Gibson could ever take on this role, and they would be dead wrong. Hardy nails it. He’s brooding, menacing, dangerous. With very little dialogue, he conveys a tortured past, a man who’s emotionally shut off and perhaps a little nuts, yet still has a sliver of humanity somewhere within him. Hardy fucking rocks it, and I hope this is the first of many films with him in this role.
Stacking up against him nicely is Theron, as a tough-as-nails chick with a mean mechanical arm that is more of a weapon than it is a limb. Theron has played some rough customers in the past, and Furiosa is far and away the roughest. She’s totally believable as a babe who could survive in this environment. Keays-Byrne, who played the villain in the original Mad Max, is creepy good as a different villain this time around, though this character is a bit underused. His Immortan Joe isn’t quite on the same level as his Toecutter, but he is a damn sight better than Tina Turner from that steaming kangaroo turd of a third movie.
And what the hell is left to say? This is a frustrating review to write, because I’m having a hell of a time articulating just how crazy awesome Mad Max: Fury Road truly is. That’s it, it’s crazy awesome. Period. It’s a tour-de-force of cinematic bad-assery that totally blew my brains out the back of my balls… see, I’m not even making sense now, that’s what this movie did to me. It is the very best of the Mad Max series. There, I said it, and being the ginormous fan of The Road Warrior that I am, that is saying a lot. Truthfully, no amount of words can really do it justice, you just have to fucking see it, and I strongly suggest you get on that, pronto.
