Review: MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

There has been no film like this before. There will be no film like this ever again. 

Unless George Miller gets Warner Brothers to fork up another enormous budget and let him run wild, that is. Miller’s goal with Mad Max: Fury Road was to create a 2 hour long chase movie, and he has succeeded beyond any expectations. Mad Max and The Road Warrior were staples of my youth, and Road Warrior still stands tall as one of the greatest action films of all time. That’s not to slight Mad Max, or to completely write off Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but Road Warrior is a brilliant piece of film making. Fury Road has been in the works for a quarter century in one form or another. Just soak that in for a minute. Thunderdome was released in 1985, and a few years later Miller began planning another chapter. Decades pass, Mel Gibson gets too old for the role, at one point there’s a 3D animated film happening, then there’s a two part film in mind which Fury Road was going to be the second of, and the list goes on. All that time, many had given up hope of ever seeing a return to the Mad Max world. But now here we are, and Fury Road was worth every moment of wait.

Every character has a name in Fury Road, but aside from Max (Tom Hardy), Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays­Byrne), you won’t learn any of them until you see the credits roll…for example, the hilarious moniker of the main henchman is Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones). Dialogue is often so thick with an Australian bend that you can’t understand what people are saying, especially when the aggressive, incredible soundscape and score are drowning them out. Action is so frenetic, so unrelenting and dazzling, that it’s difficult to determine what exactly is happening some of the time. Now take all of that and realize that NONE OF IT MATTERS. That’s not to say that the film is faultless or exempt from criticism, none are, but those few bits were the only thing I could muster up as something resembling a negative.

The story of Fury Road, which takes place sometime long before Thunderdome, is that our hero Max is taken prisoner and inadvertently is thrown into a power struggle between Immortan Joe and his legion of white­caked, silver­paint­inhaling, mad men, and his rebellious, imperator Furiosa. Furiosa had taken it under her power to steal Joe’s “brides,” which are seemingly the last few gorgeous, fertile women in the midst of an ugly future. All women aside from Furiosa are nothing but a womb for breeding to Joe, and that’s something that can’t remain. Furiosa intends to take the women to a promised land of sorts, and Max is once again reluctantly pointed toward helping those in needs, haunted and guided by ghostly visions of his slain daughter. They undertake the impossible task of driving a massive tanker truck and escaping not just the Warboys, but all of the other treacherous groups that lie in their path.

Hardy and Theron embody their respective characters with an authentic danger and emotional heft that resonated with me very deep. Something I don’t expect to get much from a gargantuan film like this is emotions for the characters, involvement with their struggles and goals, but yet here I am talking about it as if it’s a natural component. Hardy embodies Max with very few words, as only he can do; the man is an enigma that can speak volumes with a glare. What’s even more astounding to me is that the movie may be titled with Max’s name, but in actuality the hero and main character is Furiosa. With her amputated forearm and mechanical replacement, and grease paint on her shaved dome, Theron oozes cool somehow even more than Hardy does. The word “feminism” gets thrown around a lot (nobody seems to understand what it means), and Theron has stated numerous times that she views the film as a female empowerment statement. As the Warboys came off to me as overtly symbolic of Muslim extremists, it only makes sense that the antithesis is “girl power!” It’s one of many underlying symbols that I think I’ll uncover in repeat viewings. Never did I imagine that Fury Road was going to be enjoyed equally by women as men, but I truly believe it will be.

So, here’s a quick rundown of why else this all works so well. The film looks incredible under Miller’s vision brought to reality by cinematographer John Seale, Jason Ballantine and Margaret Sixel’s editing, and the amazing art direction, costume, and production design team. I felt the editing of these action pieces which comprise about 75% of the movie, and keeping the pace perfectly balanced to give you a much needed breather for a character beat, is mind boggling. It is amazingly successful; never is the film slow, never uninteresting or un­engaging, even in the few quiet moments. Bringing the world to life with the aid of digital effects is key, but never is it overbearing or distractingly artificial. So much of the film is practical; with car wrecks and stunts that left my jaw dropped (the insurance rates are unimaginable) and an entirely real, golden landscape of sand dunes. The “car porn” aspect of the series has been brought to an entirely new level by showcasing incredible super­vehicles most would kill to drive. Junkie XL’s bombastic, tribal soundtrack is consistently stunning and propels the action to even grander heights. The only thing I can’t comment on is the 3D conversion (Ed.: the press screening was in 2D). Early on Miller planned to shoot in native 3D, but changed his mind due to the harsh weather conditions and limitations for capturing the stunts. With that in mind though, he has planned the film to be in 3D since day one, and I saw in every moment that it could only enhance the scope and chaos on display. I’ll find out how right I am when I see it again this weekend.

If there is such a thing as a perfect film, it might as well be Mad Max: Fury Road. Based on the goal in mind and the execution, there is no movie that comes close. The spectacle and the thrill is the main draw, but surprisingly the characters, the emotion, and the hidden depth is what set it up on a higher plane. I hope Fury Road is a smash, while word­-of­-mouth and almost demanded repeat viewings will hopefully overcome an R rating and a difficult budget to recoup. This is a movie that begs to be seen in theaters, and I’m not convinced they’ve done enough to make that clear to the general public. No matter, though. Succeed or fail, Fury Road is George Miller’s masterpiece. This is a film we’ll be showing off and showcasing for decades to come. Miller has done the impossible and managed to eclipse the rest of the series in one fell swoop. It’s the movie fans have been waiting for, and that newcomers will embrace all the same. Let’s let Miller try to top his own bar.