Mad Max: Fury Road delivers upon its high expectations as George Miller's innovative, madcap direction and Tom Hardy's weighty presence combine to make an epic action experience of little comparison.
It's been 30 years since a Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and considering the personal hardships director George Miller suffered throughout that production, it is of little wonder he felt business with the “Road Warrior” was unfinished.
While attempts were made to get Mel Gibson back in the leathers and behind the wheel, his "troubles" forced Miller to look elsewhere. Recasting an iconic character is always a risky venture, yet Miller chose wisely in British actor Tom Hardy, whose decade plus career of excellent choice in projects (and the subsequent terrific performances that followed) has led to the next logical career step: leading man in a film franchise. A make no mistake, while Gibson is the Sean Connery in this equation, Hardy is the Daniel Craig needed to push this franchise forward.
Mad Max: Fury Road opens with Hardy's Max pursued by a group of "guzzaline" addicted, V8 worshipping speed demons known as "War Boys", who serve tyrannical cult leader Immortan Joe (a curiously cast Hugh Keyes-Byrne, who also played the villain in the original Mad Max.)
Captured and tortured, Max gets his chance for revenge against his captors when Immortan Joe's top warrior Furiosa (Charlize Theron) stows away his almost angelic "brides" (played by Rosie Whitley, Zoe Kravitz and others) in her supped up truck known as a “war-rig” and escapes Joe's creepy clutches.
Max helps Furiosa in her pursuit for redemption as Joe and his gear-head army makes chase. In the process both Hardy and Theron make for a great duo, the former supplying a weighty, masculine, charismatic presence, while the latter burns up the screen with her intensity, Theron proving to have the fiercest eyes in the business.
The biggest star of Mad Max: Fury Road is Miller, with his balls-to-the-wall approach to filmmaking and unique world-building creating a rare commodity in todays oversaturated superhero / young adult / remake industry: a franchise film that does not play slave to a source material or demographic (you ain’t gonna find no PG-13 nonsense here.)
Just like the title character itself, Mad Max: Fury Road is very much the loner amongst the ranks of blockbuster spectaculars, backing its hype with bat-shit crazy vehicular carnage action that is both breathtaking in imagery and hefty in presence, with every gear crunched, engine roared, and car-frame smashed, felt in the pit of your stomach and seared into your brain.
Set amongst the barren post-apocalyptic desert wasteland that Miller perfected over the course of the Mad Max franchise, Miller has delivered quite the spectacle that ranks amongst the lauded franchise’s best.
Mad Max: Fury Road is not a remake or reboot, but rather a refuel of glorious Nitrous that not only has this long gestating franchise supercharged, but also firing on all cylinders.
