Mad Max: Fury Road

So, a new Mad Max eh? Seems like an odd choice for a franchise to revise, as the original films really only exist as cult classics. And while it has name recognition, Joe and Jane Public really don’t know much about it apart from that. But nevertheless, it is back and with a vengeance.

Fury Road promises an intense action ride with lots of car chasing goodness and gritty settings and characters. And it delivers. The action sequences take up the majority of the film and are both inventive and well-choreographed. They manage to stay fresh throughout the movie too, which is nice.

There is one major lull about 3/4 of the way in as the runaway rig carrying fugitive women from a work camp gets to take a break from the constant pursuit behind them. Normally a break in the action doesn’t bother me much, but maybe because there wasn’t much substantial in this lull or perhaps because I had become so accustomed to the breakneck pacing and energy thus far, it felt really laborious.

Tom Hardy definitely looks the part of Max, but other than that most of what he does is grunt his lines under his breath.  Charlize Teheron is great as Furiosa.  That guy who plays Beast in the X-Men movies plays a rather annoying character which brings the story down a bit.

The setting really manages to realize the anarchistic landscape of the original films in a somewhat fuller and richer sense than before, going into various different factions living in the outback. And honestly, a lot about this society is mostly an exercise in grotesquerie, something which I’ve never been a fan off and usually turns me off. A lot of the grosser realizations does knock this down a notch for me, but I do realize that that is a totally personal and subjective nitpick. But in reality, this is one wild ride and a truly visceral action movie experience.

8/10