By
Mark Cerulli
Thirty
years after Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
seemingly ended the Australian post apocalypse triptych, director George Miller
is back, with a vengeance (and a much bigger budget). The result could have been an
overdone, bloated production, loaded with CGI and soft on any real thrills…
instead Miller has created a masterpiece that significantly raises the bar of
action filmmaking.
Where
to begin? From the opening sequence when
Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) surveys a vast desert wasteland while eating a
mutant lizard that wandered too close, you know this ain’t your daddy’s Mad
Max. The film explodes from there – Max
is captured by a gang of “War Boys†run by a terrifying character named
Immortan Joe, his face hidden behind a ghastly breathing mask complete with
teeth. Joe is played by Hugh Keys-Byrne who
starred as Toe Cutter in the original Mad
Max. The actor has bulked up and gone gray, but lost none of his swaggering
menace. Our Max is quickly put to use as
a living blood donor for an ailing warrior named Nux (Nicholas Hoult). Max’s life seems grim and short until he makes
a daring escape, joining up with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who has just
committed the most unforgivable of sins – stealing from Immortan Joe. And she didn’t just drive off with treasure
or gasoline, she’s taken his very future – his five alluring slave wives, one
of whom is carrying his child. You can
bet he’ll unleash the hounds of automotive hell to get them back!
The
film cleverly blends the best of the first three movies – snippets of Max’s
personal tragedy, the hulking villain from 1982’s Road Warrior and a bit of Bartertown, resulting in a full throttle chase
through the irradiated wasteland. Gradually Max and Furiousa learn to trust each other, but that’s as warm
and fuzzy as the movie gets – there’s just no time for more. In fact, if Max has more than one page of
dialogue in the entire film, I’d be surprised. What there IS time for, is an array of
mind-bending stunts as they flee Immortan Joe’s forces, pursuing them in a
fleet of devilishly souped-up vehicles. Throw in the hostile, opportunistic
tribes roaming the wasteland and death is literally waiting around every curve. In terms of pacing, the director really puts
the hammer down, so it’s relentless… and best of all, Miller did everything “Old
School.†Real stunts, flying stuntmen, honest to gawd car crashes and glorious
explosions, all played out against a white hot sky and muted red earth. (The
film was shot off the grid in the Namibian desert when the Australian outback appeared
too forgiving.)
While
many of today’s releases can be enjoyed on DVD or any of the over the top
services now available, Mad Max: Fury
Road MUST be seen in a theater and
with an audience. Guaranteed, there
won’t be the usual multiplex hassles of conversation or texting – all eyes will
be glued to the screen. (The preview
audience I saw it with actually applauded various action sequences, a real
rarity.)
We
all love old movies and constantly lament, “They just don’t make ‘em like they used
to.†This time they did, and Lord
Humongous would approve!
Mad Max: Fury Road Opens May 15th
from Warner Bros.