Most reboots of classic films from the 70’s and 80’s never really work out, that’s not the case with George Millers “Mad Max: Fury Road”, which exploded into theaters last Friday and has audiences and critics shouting with joy over every second of its two hour showtime.
Having very little downtime, the film is after the apocalypse and the entire world is practically lifeless or horrible mutated. Max (Tom Hardy) is a lone wanderer who makes his own way through the wasteland of society, fighting off bandits and other dangers of this nuclear wasteland all while being haunted by the people he could never save from the horrors he has endured.
After being captured by a band of survivors, Max is transported to a massive outpost ruled over by the warlord Immortan Joe and his pale, sickly Warboys. Joe has control over a massive water supply and uses this to keep his thousands of “subjects” in check, offering them only a minute amount of water per day.
Joe sends a massive truck and several smaller patrol vehicles, led by the brave Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to get a supply of gas from a neighboring city.
However, Furiosa instead is on a different mission, one that will involve stealing Joe’s five wives In an attempt to bring them to safety and away from his brutal tyranny.
This basically is all the film is and while it may seem like a simple plot, a lot more ensues throughout the course of the movie than an average audience member might expect. For example, the film has very little dialog, I could probably count the number of times Tom Hardy spoke throughout the entire film. Yet still, I understood everything that was happening and was routing for the characters the entire time. Miller does an excellent job at keeping the audience interested and connected to the film’s universe, characters, and storyline just within a short two hour long time period.
This is something action movies have trouble doing these days. Creating a world where the audience is interested and wants to know more about the universe these characters live in is a very hard thing to do, yet Miller succeeds in these aspects completely. I left the theater wanting to learn more about Joes Warpups religious ideology, about Furiosas mysterious background, and just about Max himself. The film invokes this great sense of curiosity that other action films just haven’t been able to do recently.
The action in the film is just something Hollywood hasn’t seen in a very long time. Almost all of the stunts seen in the film were exactly that: stunts. They weren’t CGI or anything like that. These were real explosions the audience saw on screen, real characters in danger, real people being thrown, tossed, and hit on top of cars moving at very fast speeds.
There was a lot of danger going in to making these films and a lot of really cool aspects as well. One of the best scenes was in the beginning as Immortan Joe is driving with his Warparty to get back his wives from Furiosa. The camera has these wide shots of all of the cars driving along the desert and the audience hears these drums playing and they see this giant truck with drums on the back and people playing them. Then in the front, they see this guy in a red-velvet outfit playing a guitar that spits fire like a flamethrower blindfolded while the car is actually moving. This actually happened in the film and this was acted by a real person.
So yes there is a flame-spitting guitar out there that actually works. No it is not for sale (unfortunately).
While the movie has been classified by other critics as “one long chase scene” (not saying it isn’t), this film is purely about survival, about having the hope and strength to make life better in a world that has just gone completely insane. This constant type of action movie has been missing from Hollywood for a very long time. With the amazing chase scenes, incredible special effects, awesome stunts, breathtaking cars, weapons, and action in general, “Mad Max:Fury Road” is the definitive action movie of this generation.
Score: 10/10
