Mad Max: Fury Road

Year: 2015
Genre: Action
Director: George Miller
Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Nathan Jones, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz
Production: Kennedy Miller Productions

There was an unmistakable pang in my stomach when I watched the very first trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road a few months back. I watched it with a gaggle of young people and their response to the trailer was one of elation. Then I mentioned the originals and everyone looked confused. Has this sequel/reboot of the crazy post-apocalyptic world created by director George Miller come to late? Will fans of the original still look at the blighted desert hellscape with the same reverence? Will newcomers to the series welcome it? After watching Fury Road I can safely conclude that not only will the film be welcomed by a majority of people craving a good action-packed popcorn flick, this new movie will effectively change the action-adventure game for the better.

Now this is how you pull off Bane!

The story begins with Max (Hardy) being chased by a group of crazed goons across the desert in his signature Interceptor car. The vehicle crashes spectacularly and he's immediately captured. We're introduced to a host of characters warped by the landscape and made crazy by their circumstance. Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne) sits atop of the social spectra. A violent, disfigured dictator who has hijacked not only the world's most needed resource, water, but the world's most precious: the future. He has taken the most beautiful brides among his dirt-pile civilization and forces them into a harem where he rapes them to birth a normal, untarnished heir. That is until Furiosa (Theron) a trusted marauder takes the harem and escapes in her war rig with a mission to take them to "the green place". With war parties in fast pursuit, Max is forced to be a feral warrior's "blood bag" until fate allows him the chance for escape and possible redemption from the thoughts that haunt him.

After a fifteen minute setup the entire movie boils down to one, big, long, explosive, exciting, pulse-pounding chase through the desert. Each action set-piece is a master's course in chaotic beauty and mayhem. Lest you think you've seen it all, watch the first extended chase between the war rig and the war parties...then wait another five minutes, because the expectations you just set for yourself will be blown to smithereens. George Miller decided to film in the otherworldly desert of Namibia instead of the Australian outback. The hues of the rock and sands of Namibia make for some austere beauty and intensifies the desperation of the world of Mad Max. No longer are their paved roads, only basins of flat unforgiving dirt remain. Trekked by those most craven and those most crazed.

Gotta love a strong silent type

Through all the absurd chaos, characters emerge. Not through dialogue or long-winded explanations but through action. Everyone we meet is stripped to their essence and pitted against each other. The number one goal for our beleaguered protagonists? Survival; it's that simple. Max in particular has quite a complex character arc given the movie's structure. He is reintroduced in our psyche as a man who once had a moral compass now reduced to an animal; wild and instinctual. He lost those he loved most and is haunted by their memories. By the end of the movie his purpose is molded beyond simply survival. His resourcefulness and pragmatism follows a logical train that ends with Max becoming a restorer of hope. A rebirth of the dark anti-hero we once loved and all with little to no dialogue.

Now a game-changing movie like this is not without its controversy. Men's Rights Activists have been crying foul ever since this movie's been released, claiming the movie is feminist propaganda masquerading as a shoot-em-up. Noted chauvinist blogger and blatherskite Aaron Clarey even initiated a boycott over it's perceived "feminist agenda". "men in America and around the world are going to be duped by explosions, fire tornadoes, and desert raiders into seeing what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda, while at the same time being insulted AND tricked into viewing a piece of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very eyes."

Apparently Mad Max is now American 

With as much respect as I can give people with rudimentary understanding of discrimination; shut up. Having physically and emotionally strong female characters is not propaganda. Nor is making an enemy out of a thoroughly disgusting human who in no way represents the male gender or the patriarchy as it exists today. If anything the warped society that exists in Fury Road is an exaggerated view of patriarchy therefore categorizing the political elements of Mad Max as satire. Even to claim the film has a feminist agenda of any kind is suspect. Not all feminists believe the same thing but a majority believe portraying women in media in the mold of a traditional male sans a penis, is not the best way to empower women. Not to discount Theron's performance but her Furiosa does fit that bill.

My only real complaint is less about the movie and more about Hollywood's insistence that 3D is the way to go. Dazzling sequences of real stunt driving and explosions that would put the Fast and Furious franchise to shame are interrupted by obvious frames where 3D is injected for the sake of being injected. In one, almost delirious moment of climax,  we see obvious computer generated twisted metal synchronized to look like a jack-in-the-box. It was distracting flaw but not a fatal flaw.

Mad Max: Fury Road is not just a spectacular action film; its an action film that truly raises the bar. Those who have never seen the original films won't be lost nor will they be disappointed. Through frenetic editing, solid, smooth camera work, strong acting, brawny, metal-meets-muscle action sequences and minimalist story, every action movie the foreseeable future is going to wish it was Mad Max.

Final Grade: A