Review: Mad Max: Fury Road

Having gone through a 30 year development Hell with problems ranging from War time political sensitivity all the way to the fucking weather, the fact that Mad Max has a forth entry is quite surprising, one can only imagine what it would've been like with original star Mel Gibson still in the title role but Fury Road sets out its own path towards adding to the Mad Max universe and delivering one of the most impressively created action movies of the decade.

Set in the years between Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome, the film finds Max, still haunted by the loss of his wife and child, attacked and captured by a violent and crazed cult called The War Boys, led by the tyrannical and twisted Immorten Joe. With Max's blood type deemed Universal, he's passed on to one of the War Boy Drivers called Nux for... well that would be telling and it's pretty crazy so you need to see for yourself.

At the same time, Immortan Joe has his best warrior Imperator Furiosa drive the heavily armoured War Rig to collect gasoline so his citadel could fuel itself, however Furiosa goes off-track and Joe realises that she has taken his 'wives' five beautiful woman picked directly for breeding purposes, and plans to escape with them. Rounding out his entire War Boys army and their trucks, the chase begins... with Max reluctantly chained to the front.

After getting caught in a desert storm, Max and Furiosa cross paths, leading to a violent scuffle, however they both soon realise they have a common enemy in Joe and his crew so they put aside their differences to work together to escape, as the chase goes on and the War Boys get closer and closer, the two of them start relying on each other more and more as them and the Wives face off against the impossible odds just to have the hop of escape.

What the plot ultimately amounts to is a 2 hour chase film, from the moment Furiosa starts the War Rig - which is about 5, 10 minutes in - to the final scene this film never lets up, it's just set-piece after set-piece of this huge, epic scaled sequences across the desert landscapes of nuclear ridden Australia, even the few moments of downtime always have that fear of not being able to stop for long. Much like Road Warrior - and Beyond Thunderdome to a lesser extent - the film has Max have basically very little to do with the actual storyline, he's just a regular guy who ends up wrapped in the shit and it works, without any back-history or contrived reasons to tie everything together, the film instead opts for a very streamlined approach to its storyline and is all the better for it.

One of the film's biggest selling points is its characters, particular it's heavy focus on female, and females in all forms, this is very much a feminist action movie that brings several personality types to the forefront rather than just having the virgin or the emotionless bad-ass. The Five Wives, Splendid, Capable, Toast, Cheedo and The Dag Queen, have all been captured and presumably raped by Joe for a long time, enough that most, if not all of them, have been impregnated by the sick bastard. However this emotional and physical torture they've gone through has moulded them into very different people. Splendid (Rosie Huntington-Whitely) is Joe's favourite and uses that to her advantage, putting herself in harm's way because she knew Joe would go out of his way to avoid hurting her and the child she carried.

Capable was a much more trusting and passive woman, she did her part to help the team but for the most part she was the most normal out of the girls, her friendship with Nux showed a woman who could see the good in someone, even if they couldn't.

Toast had a tougher edge to her, she'd developed a thick skin and a fuck-you attitude, allowing her to keep a level head in times of trouble and almost operate as Furiosa's second-in-command, keeping ammo stocks and even running her own little bit of trickery towards the end.

Cheedo is the weakest Wife, at least in terms of mentality, she's known as The Fragile and you can see why, when things get too tough and too hopeless she tries to return to Joe, through fear of his wrath or maybe some demented form of love, it's difficult to tell but the fact that she was included was a nice touch.

Rounding out the Wives was The Dag Queen, a strange, almost feral woman with a laid-back mentality and a love for the little things in nature that she came across. She was one of the more interesting of the Wives, especially after a second act introduction allows her to expand herself with new people.

All five of the wives each showcased a very different personality even though they all came from the same disturbing background, admittedly I would've liked more from them but the fact that all five of them were their own creation was a great touch in my books.

Along with the Wives, Charlize Theron proves that this is a Female Action Movie with her bad-ass turn as Furiosa, and there is a big argument to be made (and in fact seems to be being made right now) that Furiosa is the real star of the film, with Max just along for the ride out of bad luck , it's Furiosa that delivers the true heart of the film, her one-armed driver is already pretty bad-ass, she's got a cool head, even in the impossible situations and she's willing to go as far as she can and beyond to save these girls, even trying to kill Max when he poses a threat to their survival. However she's no fool and quickly realises that Max might just be the help they need when Joe's army catches up to them, it's her that offers an alliance that would benefit both of them mutually. Furiosa's bad-ass cred and her willingness to go out of her way to save these girls would be enough to make her a great character but where her and Theron's performance stands out is in the emotional resonance, not to spoil anything but the reveal of who Furiosa is and where she came from adds another layer to the character and the film as a whole in regards to its Feminist themes whilst also allowing Theron to nail some heavy emotions in the later parts of the film. This is easily Theron's 'Ripley' moment and if the news of a sequel are true then this could evolve into a modern action heroine great.

But of course the film is titled 'Mad Max' so let's talk about Max, played by Tom Hardy, taking over from Mel Gibson, Max is a very different type of hero than most would expect in today's age, in fact there's a very real notion that he's not a hero at all, Max is a survivor, just getting by day-to-day with nothing left to lose following his family's death, after his path crosses with Furiosa his first thought isn't to help her, it's to steal her rig and drive off on his own, only by necessity does he actually stick with her. Hardy portrays Max as a very deliberate man, he doesn't speak often and when he does it's usually with a low growl, almost animalistic showing how far Max has fallen into the madness. Between his cold demeanour and his haunting visions of those he could not save, Max is arguably just as crazy as the people he's fighting against, where he differs is in his humanity, Max might initially be on Furiosa's side but he comes around and their relationship proves to be very helpful to both parties, Max can make difficult but necessary choices due to his lack of emotional connection to the group while the Wives give Max a chance to redeem himself for his failures, it's a very toned down performance but Hardy makes it work because he shows Max is a man who doesn't want any part in this fight but now that he's in it, he's not gonna sit back and let it happen.

One more quick thing, I really like that Max and Furiosa's relationship never goes into romance territory, that would never have fit in with the characters or the story, Max is too damaged and Furiosa is too focussed on the task at hand. There's no time for love Dr Jones and keeping them as friends was a good touch.

Finally there was the villains, first up Nicholas Hoult as Nux who started out as one of the insane War Boys who got saddled with Max during the initial raid but after he fails Joe one too many times he realises his best hope would be with The Wives, slowly coming to realise that they are people and not property as Joe seems to think. Nux is a fun role and is suitably insane to stand out but his arc is easily one of the better parts of the film.

Aside from Joe there was a few other subvillains that stood out, The People Eater was a large, hulking blob of a man who tried to fool himself into thinking he was upperclass. The Bullet Farmer was a crazed old-man who got on the wrong side of an exploding spotlight and suffered for his madness, and Joe's son Rictus was a manic brute, very much taking like his father with a penchant for violence and sheer, hulking strength. But the head of the pack was Immortan Joe, played by Hugh Keays-Byrne - who played the villain Toecutter in the original Mad Max, Joe is this tyrant, he's a sick old man suffering from some kind of illness but he's modified his body with a distinctive mask and suit that keeps him going, despite whatever ails him, Joe runs his town with a ferocity and a iron hand since it's he who controls the water supply. He's a suitably horrifying presence and fucking sick, twisted bastard, definitely a solid villain to go up against.

After 30 year from the Australian wasteland and having gone onto more family friendly affairs like Babe and Happy Feet, the fact that George Millar - at 70 years old no less - is able to slip right back into this world and deliver one of the best action films since his own Road Warrior entry back in 1981 is a testament to his skills and the world that Max lives in. Now obviously the action scenes are the highlight but Millar goes one step further than that, he fully create a world for these action scenes to take place, which is saying something since 90% of this film is set in a fuckin desert. Everything from the differing factions of War Boys, Gas-Town and Canyon Dwellers to the suicidal nature of the War Boys who spray-paint their teeth chrome before a final, explosive end to their lives in the hopes of reaching Valhalla, it's those touches that make this film so much more, when you understand this world you can better align yourself with the people that are living in it and how they all interact with each other, it's a small but very important thing that makes this far more than just an action movie.

Still though, the action scenes in this film are just impossible to ignore, they fucking make this film worth watching for the sheer size and scale that Millar brings to the screen. Whilst they are all variations of a car chase, Millar is able to make each one of them work differently to the other through camera styles - the quick-cut editing is used frequently but Millar makes it feel more fluid than jerky, there's always something going on and Millar makes sure to capture it all without losing the film's flow - and more importantly a differing aesthetic for each scene, the opening chase is a slow build up as Furiosa diverts from the main road and tries to survive as long as possibly before anyone notices her plan which just grows and grows, incorporating traps, explosive spears, warring factions all fighting to get the tanker for their own reasons and even a fuckin desert storm if the insanity wasn't enough for you. Later on there's an entire Night sequence as the Rig gets trapped in swamplands whilst Joe's army gets closer and closer to them, it's a far less explosive scene but the cold blue of the screen and the near impossibility to see anything allows for the film to make a very different action set-piece than earlier.

The Finale might just be the best part of the film, it's a do-or-die situation and the incredible size of the whole thing, it features everything from spitting gas directly into the engine and strange pole creations that sway and move to allow for a longer reach to the maddening amount of cars and trucks and villains up against this small group of survivors and one of the most impressively created and uniquely designed explosions I've seen in a while, hell there's even an entire truck specifically for the use of a flame-throwing guitar, complete with amps and a supporting drum-set. The last 20 minutes of this film rivals Kingsmen's Church Scene for best action sequence of the year. And I didn't even mention the best part, apparently 80% of these scenes are practical FX work, Millar uses CGI properly, using it to enhance the film rather than BE the film, the result is very evident, each crash, each explosion, each separate moment of this flick has a far weightier punch to it, when cars collide and you can see the debris and the wreckage shoot out in hundreds of directions at once, it makes it so much more satisfying to watch and a hell of a lot more impressive to witness, if nothing else this film will make you wonder why other films don't use Practical FX more often.

One final note is that aside from creating some truly spectacular looking stunt work, Millar never forgets to make the film tense, and he does that by injecting a very heavy sense of hoplessness against impossible odds, pitting these eight people in one Rig against an army of better equipped, better prepared and better designed mad men does raise the tension more than you would expect it to, you find yourself wondering just how the hell they'll get out of this and quite often they don't. It's a film that isn't afraid to take these character to difficult places, especially in the later parts of the film, I don't want to spoil it but when Furiosa discovers a hard truth the film evolves from epic chase movie into something far more akin to its apocalypse setting and its own unique design.

Fury Road might have had a tough beginning but looking at the finished product you'd never know, it's been a long time but Mad Max jumps right back to life with this entry and stands out as something pretty damn special. The streamlined plot makes sure the focus in on the action with no fat to big it down, the characters are all well defined with Hardy and Theron making a fantastic double-act and the Feminist nature pushing the film to a different level whilst also having mastermind George Millar use his skills to create a fully realised and practically destructive environment filled with impossible stunts and incredible set-pieces. Yeah this is a lot of fun and easily worth going out of your way to see.

9/10